


Reunited, Near-sighted, and Possibly Requited

by KiwiLeif



Category: IT (Movies - Muschietti), IT - Stephen King
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Canon-Typical Violence, Fix-It, M/M, Mix of book canon and film canon, POV Richie Tozier, Resolved Sexual Tension, art included
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-14
Updated: 2020-10-09
Packaged: 2021-03-01 01:15:15
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 9
Words: 28,698
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23146810
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/KiwiLeif/pseuds/KiwiLeif
Summary: The Losers Club reunion from Richie's point of view, and also maybe getting Eddie to not die this time around
Relationships: Eddie Kaspbrak/Richie Tozier
Comments: 32
Kudos: 78





	1. Chapter 1

It’s fucked up remembering, starting at ‘Trashmouth’ and working his way down, up, and outwards from there, but it doesn’t just happen all at once so that’s probably a good thing, thus the downwards and upwards and such. It’d be much more fucked to have everything slap him in the face in one go, with nothing but a handful of hot chips and a double scotch rolling around in his belly.

It’s fucked up that he knew to pick up Mike’s call. This is America, bitch, and no one picks up an unknown number, least of all someone with even a tiny modicum of fame under their belt. That path leads to heavy breathing and crusty undies in the mail. But he picked up Mike’s call because he didn’t remember but he _did_ , somewhere in his brain, and that’s kind of a lot to think about. Like he’s carrying his entire past somewhere inside, but it all got stashed away and he didn’t even know it? Like his entire childhood was just fucking _gone_ and he never thought ‘hey, this is kind of weird. Other people reminisce about first loves or talk about how their friends drifted apart in college and it never occurred to me that I can’t relate to any of this shit? And no one even questioned it? Not even me?’ That fucking clown got him all fucked up.

That fucking clown.

He blows some pretty phenomenal chunks when Mike calls, because the thing that hits him hardest, or rather, first, is the clown. His brain can’t quite work out what the fuck to do with the snippets of memory and feeling that come barrelling down the line on the slipstream of Mike’s voice, but it can definitely work out the fear. Oh, that part’s easy.

So he throws up and he gets drunk and he throws up again and he books a plane ticket. One way, because all he can feel is the fear and the total and utter despair of it all, so he doesn’t really believe he’ll make it out alive. They thought they killed It the first time, but they didn’t, and now It’s back and they’re not the same team they were before, they’re _strangers_ now, they’re –

They’re.

And who the fuck even is ‘they’? That’s even more fucked up. Yes, his childhood is fucking kaput and that means that the clown or Derry or the – the fucking _turtle_ Bill talked about dipped into his gourd and scooped all of it out, and that’s –

Oh.

Bill.

He starts to remember himself from ‘Trashmouth’ and works his way down, up, and outwards from there. He starts to remember the Losers from ‘Bill’ and works his way up, up, _up_.

-

It’s fucked up that he started remembering the Losers from Bill, and not from Mike, who he literally spoke to.

That’s what dawns on him as he makes his way across Derry’s threshold and gets more and more nuggets of memory bombarding his exhausted, squishy brain. It’s not like Mike wasn’t his friend, or like Bill was more important. They were the Losers Club, all of them, and no one was more important than the other.

But Bill was their leader, and. Well. He feels guilty as fuck about it but it’s not like Mike ever has to know. It makes sense, really. Bill was the leader and he was the glue. Everyone was tied together through the clown, sure, but they were also all tied together through Bill. He rallied them. It makes sense that everything comes down to him. Everything draws up and up and _up_ from him.

It’s sort of romantic, except that’s pretty fucked up too so he doesn’t try to think about it.

And anyway. Those thoughts will probably change when he sees everyone, which is a thought he both can and cannot handle in equal measure, through fear and excitement and a bunch of other reasons he can’t fully explain. After all, he can remember bits and pieces, feelings and expressions and ice cream and bicycles, but the names are sort of hazy and the faces are even hazier. He can’t hear their voices in his head. He can hear Bill’s stutter but only in the distant kind of way in that he remembers he _had_ one, but doesn’t remember what that sounded like in person.

He can remember the rhyme, though. Or. Not the rhyme, the – fuck, he’s not sure what it’s called. But he remembers it.

‘He thrusts his fists against the posts and still insists he sees the ghosts’.

That’s the clearest one.

The next one is seeing the clown come down on a meteorite.

It’s fucked up, but he thinks all of the Losers were there with him at the time, at a campfire, or a bonfire, or around a fucking _candle_ , séance-style, he’s not sure, but all of them were there at one point and then it was just him and Mike, or he only remembers him and Mike because he can’t quite pin the other Losers down in his head yet, but it’s them and there’s smoke and there’s this illusion or this memory or premonition except it’s the past so it’s not really a premonition but the clown is there on a fucking asteroid and oh fuck he is absolutely having a panic attack.

This continues, ad nauseum, until he sees Beverley and Ben hugging.

The bravado comes down over his face like a shutter, makes him clever and blasé, but inside he is freaking the ever-loving fuck out because suddenly he has faces and _names_.

He makes some shitty joke he doesn’t even fully register about how beautiful they are, and they smile like he’s exactly how they remember, but he knows his thoughts right now are nothing like his younger self.

He looks at Beverley Marsh and Ben Hanscom and he wants to climb inside their skin.

They are completely and utterly beautiful, in a way he can’t begin to explain, in a way much bigger than anything he’s ever felt before, and he knows deep down in his shaking gut that that feeling will only get more huge and bursting and consuming when he sees the rest of the Losers. His entire adult life feels like a distant dream, dull and lifeless and alcohol-ridden. Begging for laughs from people he’d rather shoot himself than actually speak to one-on-one, because something was always missing and it’s suddenly right here in front of him. And the rest of it is inside a Chinese restaurant.

He wants to get closer, closer, _closer_ when Beverley hugs him. He wants to draw himself up small and pathetic and let himself get overwhelmed in how beautiful she is, how good her smile feels directed at him, and he wants Ben to hold him so fucking bad he could cry.

It’s not sexual or romantic, just like it isn’t with his feelings about Bill, but it’s not strictly platonic either, in a way. It’s just. It’s just a lot.

He bangs the gong in the restaurant because he needs something to cover up the high-pitched whine of longing that rises up out of him when he sees the others. Mike. Bill. Eddie. He’s never felt more pathetic and unworthy, in front of all these beautiful, successful people with their lives and their - their spouses, probably, and, and, and. Just. Fuck. All of it. They all look so scared but so happy and Richie has never felt less proud of himself in his entire life, even from the memories he’s getting back. How can he live up to these people? What has he done with his life?

“Look at these guys,” Eddie says, and there’s this moment where Mike and Bill look back and forth between themselves and Richie thinks ‘oh’.

He’s not the only one not. Remembering.

So, he gestures behind Ben’s back and makes a bloating face, and the recognition sparks to life in all of their faces. Which is a fucking blessing, honestly, because as he’s doing it his hindbrain is in overdrive, thinking ‘fuck, it’s not Ben they don’t recognise, it’s me, they don’t remember me because I was never as important, like that time they all went to Bev’s house without me, that time when they, fuck, they were doing _something, it’s right there, I almost got it_ – fuck, whatever it was they left me out because I wasn’t in on it, they were all annoyed at me just like they always were, I was never their real friend, not really, once they started getting interested in girls and Bev was so cool and interesting and smoked so I started smoking too like a fucking poser because I _was, I was a poser, trying so fucking hard to just –_ ‘

But no. The lack of recognition was for Ben, because now he’s ripped and hot and has the kind of chin men like Richie would die for. Ben has consistent stubble and a neck thicker than any part of his body was as a kid. He can probably grow a proper beard and everything. Richie’s jawline is nothing to sniff at, if he does say so himself, but he has an overbite and patchy stubble that always looks unkempt no matter what, pitch dark against his thin pasty neck.

God, Ben’s so fucking hot now it’s outrageous.

And then there’s everyone else. Movie star beautiful, the lot of them. Finally seeing Mike after only hearing his voice on the phone Richie has this faint epiphany, this spark of ‘oh, he grew out of that round face’, even though he still can’t quite place how he used to look. All he knows is that he looks nothing like his former self, not quite to the extreme of Ben but close. Bev looks more like herself, although maybe he's just being superficial and it’s all in the fiery curls.

Bill doesn’t look like himself, either. He grew into his forehead, that’s for sure, but other than that there’s not a whole lot similar, appearance-wise. The clothes are kind of the same though. That kinda hand-me-down look Richie rocks himself, clothes never quite fitting. Except where Richie sticks to short sleeves mostly, Bill’s got himself a shirt rolled up to his elbows, showing thicker forearms than he was expecting. Not that he was expecting anything, but Bill was a stick insect before. This Bill would snap their fearless leader in half.

Not that Bill was ever fearless. None of them were.

They all sit without him really taking a good hard look at Eddie, because there’s something big and nameless stopping him. From what he glances at, before he can fill up his shrivelled, roiling belly with Chinese food and booze, is that Eddie looks the most like himself of any of them. And that is.

Well. Like everything else. A lot.

It hurts to look at him, is the thing. He’s the fucking same, just, with wrinkles and shit. Same small stature. Not short. Just. Small. Same big forehead. Same expressive eyebrows and mouth. Same Bambi eyes. Same same fucking _same_ , all of it, all of _him._ It’s like being slapped with every good memory at once and not being able to parse through a single one because they’re all just one big jumble in his head. He’s gonna burst.

He's gonna throw up.

Luckily, he doesn’t, and they eat like fucking kings that night. It’s like, suddenly they’re all kids again, with their potty mouths and toilet humour, using mommy’s credit card to buy more food and alcohol than they could ever hope to consume in one night, maybe even three nights. For one long, long moment his brain is blissfully free of all those bad thoughts, he’s just cracking jokes and feeling at home for the first time since he left Derry to pursue his improv career.

And then they start talking marriage.

Turns out Bev isn’t quite the cool badass Richie always resented-slash-revered. She’s got this harried look in her eyes. She’s married a man who’s just like her dad. She’s become a cliché and that is too fucking much, even though she never says she’s being beaten, even though she just smiles and cracks wise about Bill’s wife dealing with all those shitty book endings and _other kindsa endings, if you catch my drift, wink wink_ , which makes everyone laugh. Even Ben, who still has that panicked innocent look about him even now that he’s hot and awesome.

She doesn’t say she’s being beaten, only that she’s left the guy, but Richie knows how she looked about her dad and it’s exactly the fucking same look, so he thinks everyone else catches on to the subtext too. Nobody says anything out loud. It’s enough of a bummer why they’re all reunited as it is.

Bill’s marriage seems the healthiest, or at least the least fucked up, so gets the most ribbing from Bev. His wife is a sweetheart, apparently, always supported his writing even before he got famous off of it. They married when he was only just catching the scent of a legitimate deal for his first novel. He says that everyone would like her, but he thinks Mike would get along with her best of all. He can’t place why but he ‘just feels it, y’know?’ Richie gets that.

Mike isn’t married, because he’s never been interested in that shit, which Richie respects. No one is surprised. What _is_ a surprise is that _Ben’s_ never gotten married, because everyone but Bev knows how much Ben’s pined for her since they first met, but even a feeling that powerful could’ve gotten eaten up by their collective amnesia.

And yet it’s not a surprise to Richie.

He makes his jokes about all the ways the bachelorettes in his life must have fought for his favour, and so on and so on ad nauseum ‘til he gets a big, hearty ‘beep-beep Richie!’ from Bill, but deep down inside he’s not in the least bit shocked that the Haystack never married. Probably barely dated.

Because he gets how feelings linger.

Even though he didn’t remember them, he’s got feelings that, looking back, absolutely shaped his entire life going forward out of Derry. Hindsight is 20/20, a hell of a lot better than his vision ever was, and everything is coming together in his head about his loneliness in a way that really, _really_ fucking sucks when it turns out Eddie’s married.

Eddie’s _married_.

He married his fucking _mom_ , just like how Bev got herself shackled to her dad, and there’s nothing healthy about it, nothing good and sweet about it, but he’s still fucking married. He found someone to commit his life to. He’s stuck his dick in at least one person.

Richie goes down on a shot glass because it’s that or scream.

He makes his jokes, just like with the others. _Makes his rounds_ , as it were. He’s on autopilot, grinning, trading ‘fuck you’s with Eddie who is gloriously, beautifully defensive about it all, the same angry little chipmunk he always was, eyebrows drawn down so much more dramatically than anyone else could ever manage naturally. It’s cute that he’s got him so surly, this neat little librarian-looking motherfucker saying “Why’s it so fucking funny, dickwad?” But inside he’s fucking shrivelling up. He wants to go back to the parking lot, climb into Bev’s hug and never ever come out.

Feelings fucking linger, okay. He never married anyone.

“No _way_ Richie’s married!” Bev laughs when someone makes a crack about him, or something. He doesn’t know who. He only snaps back to the real world when he hears his name.

“Oh yeah, I got married,” he says, like a fucking liar, because he wants to see how they’d react. And also because he’s feeling a bit surly himself.

What’s surprising is that, under the jeers of disbelief, Eddie seems to take it real fucking badly.

Or he thinks he’s taking it badly, anyway. Everyone’s shocked, like he thought they’d be, but Eddie’s got such an expressive face and for a second he looks… kind of wrecked. Like someone wrenched the laughter and the anger and everything else out of him, and Richie can’t tell if it’s wishful thinking or his perception’s been totally fucked by the dangerous amounts of alcohol he’s consumed tonight, but Eddie looks small all of a sudden. Well. Small _er_. He looks like he needs a hug.

It destroys him, so when Richie hoarsely squeezes out a “What, you didn’t know I got married?” and Eddie just kind of… shakes his head, doesn’t say anything but a tiny little ‘no’, like he _can’t_ , Richie caves. He can’t keep up the lie, even for yucks.

“Yeah, no, me and your mom are very happy –“

Bill coughs up beer, and Bev is absolutely beside herself with laughter, but who fucking cares about any of that when Eddie’s eyes lights up with that familiar chipmunk fury and everything is okay again.

Okay except for when Mike says Stan’s married, he was talking to his wife while they were on the phone, and isn’t that interesting? Probably likes birds just like him. Not a surprise at all. He was always so sensible, not like the rest of them, he got all the smarts in the group. And then they start wondering where Stan is again, for the second time that night, and Bev is looking. Uncomfortable. No.

No. Horrified.

So Bev calls, and they find out that they all really did share one braincell and it died with Stan Uris. And he can’t even make a joke about it.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> RIP Staniel. You and Eddie were the only ones who really looked like your kid actors.
> 
> Also, inhaling questionable bonfire smoke as literal children and tripping balls? Yeah, that was from the book. Maturin the cosmic turtle also doesn't make an appearance in the films, or the miniseries, I think.


	2. Chapter 2

They’re gonna leave. Him and Eddie.

He knows he’s being too obvious, showing all his cards like a goddamn _idiot._ It’s like he’s – fuck, like when he said ‘Trashmouth’ live on stage and forgot the punchline to the joke he didn’t even write. Like his subconscious is desperately wriggling its way out of him, one Freudian slip at a time. _His younger self._ Little baby Richie is screaming and clawing his way out of the washed-up waste of space he became, and he’s doing it like he never learnt what subtlety means.

When the fortune cookies go bananas, he shouts for Eddie.

When he decides ‘maybe I shouldn’t have just bought a one-way ticket, I don’t actually want to fucking die here’, he shouts for Eddie.

And Eddie is like ‘yeah okay’.

So Richie gets his shit, what little things he brought with him for his one way ride to the Big Sleep, and he waits for Eddie.

He shouts a few times, mostly because he has to say something or he’ll fucking explode, but mostly he just waits and. Thinks.

Well. _Thinking_ is a strong word. It’s more like repeating the same thought over and over with varying degrees of terror and wonderment.

‘Eddie’s coming with me. We’re leaving together. Tonight.’

‘Where the fuck will we go?’

He feels giddy, like baby Richie won, which honestly, he probably kinda did. He hasn’t felt like this since he actually _was_ baby Richie, that’s for sure. He didn’t feel like this when he got his first blowjob from a girl, and not even from his first blowjob from a guy, which was like, a transcendent experience all on its own. He didn’t feel like this when he got his first big gig, the kind where he wasn’t only making a wage, but making actual bank. He didn’t feel like this when he got his Netflix special.

Eddie’s watched his Netflix special.

And oh fuck, he’s back to being giddy again. Eddie knew about him, even when he didn’t remember anything. Eddie’s always been funny, way funnier than Richie and twice as quick-witted, but with his – oh fuck, with his _wife_ , Myra, when would he get the time to watch someone like Richie Tozier? No way would anyone at all like the late Mrs K tolerate the kind of bottom of the barrel, guys-being-dudes crass ‘comedy’ Richie spouts. They definitely wouldn’t let their husband watch that sort of thing, either. So where was Eddie getting his Richie fix?

The idea that Richie’s show is some kind of… illicit secret, for Eddie, is kind of wild to think about.

Kind of hot, actually.

Not that he wants to be a side piece. If being a side piece is even on the table here. Oh fuck, is he the other woman in this situation? They haven’t talked about it, bar Eddie saying ‘let’s take our shirts off and kiss’ which blew every sexy moment in Richie’s entire life clean out of the water, their sweaty hands clamped together and Eddie’s stupid sexy arms flexing on the table, and Eddie literally agreeing that they fucking leave Derry together.

The implication seems pretty clear. But then. But then, they’ve been drinking. And they’re running _from_ something, not running off together towards a bright and glorious gay future.

But they _are_ going. The two of them.

Eddie didn’t say ‘yeah, drop me off at the airport so I can go back to my wife’. He just. Said he’d go. He could’ve said it a million times between when Richie first said he’s out, and now when Richie’s cycling through his panic and elation around like, his fifth cigarette.

Bev joins him, because she still smokes. He’s not surprised. He’d bet a million bucks that piece of shit she calls – called – a husband didn’t like her habit. Bet she kept it up as her one act of rebellion. Proof she was still Badass Motherfucker Beverley Marsh.

“You’re really going, then?”

Richie grimaces, but lights up her smoke with the end of his cigarette like he’s trying to impress her anyway. Which, honestly, he kind of is. Beverley Marsh was always so cool. They lean in close together, shielding the budding flame from the breeze. She smells like terror sweat and stale smoke, just like he does. God, she’s so fucking beautiful. “As soon as Spaghetti gets all his stuff together, yeah.”

“I missed that. Spaghetti.”

“Oh?”

Bev smiles. “Mm. Brings back a lot of memories. Eddie Spaghetti. Big Bill. Haystack. Staniel, Micycle, Molly Ringwald.” She takes a long drag, her fingers as pale and thin as they ever were when they were kids. “You know, you weren’t the first person I remembered after Mike called, but it was your nicknames that really made me remember that we were a _group_. Even if I couldn’t remember that we were the Losers Club.”

“I started smoking because of you.”

It’s not what he meant to say. He wants to slam his head into a wall. He’s gutted to see Bev look uncomfortable.

“Oh. Well. Um. Sorry about that.”

“No,” he says, rubbing under his tired eyes. God, he’s exhausted. He’s going to drive them somewhere. He needs to be on his A game, or he’ll get them both killed driving into a wayward cow or something. “No, I didn’t mean – shit.” He takes a drag of his dying cigarette, mostly for something to do. “I started smoking because you were so cool.”

“Oh.”

He flounders. “You were always so cool. Not just because you were the only girl and we were – uh – you know how boys who only have guy friends are like, like they kind of, like they’re in _awe_ of – shit, I –“

“Richie.” Her hand is cold on his. Clammy. He squeezes it tight anyway. “I get it.”

“They all thought you were so fucking cool.”

Bev squeezes his hand tight, real tight, and then they’re hugging and maybe crying, just a little.

-

“It’s too cold, we should go inside.”

“One more? Shit, if I go in there and see anyone I’m gonna straight up start bawling all over again.”

Bev sticks her hands in her pockets, then shrugs. “… I think I’m running out. How close is a store from here?”

“You think _I_ know? Neither of us have been here for a solid quarter of a century.”

“Alright then, let’s go ask Mike.”

“I’ll cry if I look at him now.”

She laughs. “You big baby. Jeez. I’ll go.”

“Where the fuck is Eddie? He can’t have this much stuff.”

“We _are_ talking about the same person, right? Eddie Kaspbrak? He’d take everything but the kitchen sink if he could.”

“How can such a little man carry so much stuff?”

“Have you seen his arms? His _butt?_ I think our boy still runs. Maybe even lifts. He was strong before, with the whole… y’know, the acid thing? He was yelling at us to fight It? I bet he could lift me up if he tried.”

“Shit, yeah. I remember. The inhaler? And then he said, he said, _‘It's just a fucking Eye! Fight It! You hear me? Fight It, Bill! Kick the shit out of the sucker! Jesus Christ you fucking pussies I'm doing the Mash Potatoes all over It AND I GOT A BROKEN ARM!’_ What a goddamn hero. Funny to the end.”

“You remember the exact words? Man, I’m impressed. I think I was too busy crying.”

“Whatever. You were strong, too. I bet you could lift me up if you really tried.” He nudges into her with his shoulder. They’re both so thin and angular that it’s painful for the both of them. “Take those heels off, let’s give it a shot. I trust you.”

“Pssh! Yeah, sure!” she laughs, and shoves his back. “And then, what? You’ll lift me up too? I don’t trust you; your ass is flat as a pancake. Strength comes from the glutes, obviously. Like Samson and his hair.”

“Oh, so if we cut your butt off, you’ll be defenceless? Remind me to use that in my next bit.”

“You don’t write your own material, remember? And anyway, someone already cut your butt off and gave it all to Ben.”

He makes a low, considering sound. “Oh, you’re looking at Ben’s butt now?”

Naturally, Badass Bev Marsh takes it all in stride. “Oh please, like you haven’t. And anyway, I’ve looked at all of your butts. Ben’s is the most impressive, obviously.”

“Well, he was always _stacked_ in that department,” he ribs, which gets a groan. “Good on him for keeping that bubble booty. I respect.”

“So you’ve looked at his butt, is what you’re saying.”

Behind them, through their giggles, there’s a forced, uncomfortable cough.

“Dude,” is all Bill says.

-

Being inside the inn is like turning off a light switch. Or, maybe like turning it on. Either way, it’s like whatever levity they’d managed to eke out of this shitty situation got dampened down, or like something more important swapped out for it.

It’s fucked up when Bev’s cold, cold hand touches his arm again when they hear Eddie stumbling down the stairs with his metric fuckton of luggage. There’s something heavy in the air.

“Hey, Richie,” Bev says. “Remember Lindy Hopping with me?”

He blinks. “Uh. Yeah. Weren’t we shit at it?”

“We got stopped by someone. He taught us how to do it.”

“What?” He feels himself frown, wonders what parts of their history he’s still missing. “I don’t remember that happening. Were we good after that?”

“No. That’s. That’s the thing. It’s.”

She stops, looks scared and small like her dad’s right behind them, catching her talk to a boy.

“I need to tell you something.”

And this is how they end up staying. Because Bev has seen some shit, has literally, actually _seen some shit_ in the Deadlights, and they’re all fucked.

-

After that, they’re too busy to talk. Not just him and Eddie – all of them. They’re on a _mission_ , apparently, to go and get their tokens for the Ritual of Chodes. Low-hanging fruit, even for the undisputed King of Your Mom Jokes, but he’s under a lot of stress and he’ll fucking take it, okay. It sounds fucked up, honestly, but considering what they’ve seen and done, it’s not that ridiculous. Plus, this isn’t their first rodeo. His flashback wasn’t wrong – he and Mike really _did_ sit around a bonfire and inhale woodsmoke ‘til they tripped balls. Bill really did chow down on prime turtle tongue. They’re just walking old steps, getting back in the shitty, shitty groove. There are sharp rocks on either side, just waiting for them to fall to their dooms, so they gotta keep up.

He still wants to leave, but thinking of what could happen if he does somehow really is worse than whatever his mind can invent for what might happen if they stay. Maybe it’s because he knows what would happen to Eddie if they left. What could happen to Richie sucks, but getting Eddie caught in that crossfire would just destroy him. Never mind what he could’ve done driving them hungover and tired, with the aforementioned cow and such. That was only a possibility. What Bev’s talking about is like, fate. Actual, real life, hi-def _fate_.

“Why couldn’t she prophesise lottery numbers,” he mutters, for a lack of something better to do. It’s like he needs to get his gripes out there in the world or he really will burst. Doctors always thought he had ADHD because he couldn’t keep quiet, and even though his parents never went through with actually getting him a diagnosis proper, he’s wont to believe the men in white coats here. He feels twitchy and wild, and not just because of the imminent death thing. He’s literally strolling down memory lane, amazed by how streets that seemed to stretch on forever are squished down and dusty, worn down and pathetic, easily traversed in minutes by his big-ass feet. He felt like he needed his bike before. Now he just wants it for the wind in his hair.

Probably better not. His hairline’s weak enough as it is without getting blown back.

He needs to stay hot, for Eddie’s sake.

Now that’s a fucked up thought. He feels embarrassed, even though it only flew through his head for a second, and he didn’t even say it aloud. And anyway, ‘stay hot’? Richie ‘Trashmouth’ Tozier was never hot. Not like the rest of the Losers are, anyway. Sure, because he’s famous and kind of funny there are tumblr blogs in his name, mood-boards with his face in the middle in black and white, shit like that, but they’re mostly for quotes and shitposting, not to slaver over his non-existent abs and even more non-existent butt, as Bev had pointed out. He’s got a bit of a whiskey tum going on, and while before he didn’t really give a shit, leaning in to the whole hobo aesthetic he’s rocked since he was an actual child, being in the presence of his beautiful friends has really knocked that self-loathing back into the forefront. Before he felt like a loser because of being a loser. Now he feels like a loser because he looks like he survives on corn chips and his neighbour’s unsecured Wi-Fi.

God, and Bev was right. Eddie’s butt is where it’s at.

Much as she talked smack about his, she’s also kinda flat in the butt department, but she’s still got a good figure and nice tits, if you’re in to that sort of thing. Technically, they’re all successful, but there’s something… transient, almost, about being a comedian. Yeah, all jobs are cut-throat, and no one’s destined to be remembered forever unless you’re Beethoven or Gwen Stefani or something, but being a comedian feels so much _less_ than what everyone else is achieving. So even though they’re all successful in their own ways, Richie feels like he’s not measuring up. Not in the looks _or_ in the life department.

God, he’s going on such a sad fucking tangent. Baby Richie comes out for a second to literally slap him in the face, wake up call style, so that he can stop being such a miserable fuck, please and thank you. He needs to find his token, get the fuck out, and get back to the people who need him.

The people who actually, truly need him.

The Losers Club is what keeps him going when he gets to the arcade. It’s Eddie’s voice that tells him to be careful when he reaches through the broken glass to press down on the bar keeping the door closed, because what if he gets tetanus or some shit? He should’ve worn better shoes. His are so old and worn down that the soles are probably no thicker than a debit card. Any glass on the floor could punch straight through and lodge itself between his toes. There might be needles. And an old building like this, falling apart? There’s probably exposed asbestos everywhere. Cover your mouth, Richie. Those might be fibres in the air, not dust motes.

Mike tells him to protect his health but to go inside anyway. They need him. He doesn’t expand on himself with panicked run-on sentences like Eddie does, but the meaning is just as strong.

It’s Bill who tells him to just go ahead and go through. Bill always made them brave.

The arcade is nothing at all like he remembers, which is probably for the best. A lot of good memories here, but a lot of shitty ones, too. Some of them mixed up in each other, like that time he played _Street Fighter_ for hours because he knew the Bowers gang was waiting for him somewhere out there. He got in the zone that day, absolutely obliterated every opponent, real or computerised. It was good, except for the constant terror of what could happen if he stepped outside.

Or like that time he absolutely wiped the floor with Connor, having the time of his fucking life, maybe even making a new friend, until he found out Connor’s surname was Bowers, and he saw that familiar terror in his eyes when his cousin came by. It was the same look he saw in himself whenever he caught his own reflection. That fear that someone might think that he. That he.

He clenches the arcade token tight in his fist. When Mike said they needed to find their tokens, he’d known without a doubt what his was going to be. The thing that was at once something that reminds them of what they want to forget, but also makes them want to hold on to those memories. And it wasn’t this.

But he can’t very well throw Eddie in the fire, so this is the closest thing he can think of. The thing that reminds him how he’s different from everybody else. The thing that stopped him from understanding why everyone was so fucking enraptured by Bev when they were kids. The thing he wants to hold on to, for that possibility of what it meant when Eddie said he’d leave with him.

When Connor had called it a good game, when they’d slapped their palms together and it had lingered just that split second too long, Richie had felt that spark that he’d only ever felt for Eddie before. There, in the arcade, was the first time he thought ‘fuck, it’s not just Eddie, is it? Or that vague kinda hot feeling I get when I look at David Bowie. This is someone else I could. That I might. That I –‘

But he can’t throw Connor in the fire either. Besides, that crush died as soon as it formed; on the echo of Henry Bowers calling him a faggot. So. The token it is. The Ritual could accept payment in metaphors, right? Technically, weren’t all the tokens a metaphor? If what they were throwing in was meant to represent themselves, what they want to forget and to hold in equal measure, then surely anything but their literal selves was a metaphor. Plus, if he needed to throw Eddie in, then Eddie wouldn’t be able to complete the Ritual with them, which would make it all fucking pointless anyway. Stan took himself out of the picture so that _they_ could –

Shit. He misses Stan. Stupid, sensible Stan. Stan, who said ‘fuck’ at his bar mitzvah. Where the fuck is he? Why did he -

Stupid, stupid fucking Staniel. Richie wishes he could give him a hug.

He leaves the arcade feeling shitty, the token feeling tingly and uncomfortable in his sweaty palm, and like a complete masochist, heads for the bandstand.

Honestly, he’s a dumbass.

-

They’re all dumbasses.

The Losers reunite looking all kinds of terrible. Turns out Richie’s not the only one getting dunked on by the clown; when Bev can finally speak clearly she regales them with tales of liquid shit and grandma tit, which is a poem Richie’s baby-brain is just dying to get down on paper.

It doesn’t matter, anyway.

The Ritual is a fucking bust.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> The 'Mash Potatoes' line is a direct quote from the book. It's especially good imagining the tiny version of Eddie from the miniseries saying it.
> 
> Also, when Bev says someone taught her and Richie to Lindy Hop, it's from Stephen King's 11/22/63. Jake Epping sees them both dancing and asks them about the Dunnings, then gives them some pointers. This eventually gets nixed from the timeline, but I like to think Bev might've seen it happen anyway in the Deadlights.
> 
> It's cute, anyway. She and Richie spend a long time communicating with only a look, and Epping thinks that what they have isn't romantic, but is definitely heavy. Very good for the soul. Kudos to anyone who recognises it from 11/22/63, anyway.


	3. Chapter 3

Richie gets what Bev was trying to tell him now; with the story about the guy teaching them to Lindy Hop. The guy he doesn’t remember. She was trying to explain herself, before actually explaining herself.

The Deadlights. They make you see things.

Or. They make you _experience_ things. The world is a whole lot bigger than Derry – it’s _Killer Klowns from Outer Space_ and psychic turtles hurling celestial chunks like it’s an eternal cosmic house party. It turns out that, to Bev, they really _were_ taught to dance by some dude. But, for whatever reason, it didn’t happen in _this_ particular timeline, which is why Richie can’t remember it. She’s seen things happen, and not happen, and it’s been hard for her to parse out what was just a possibility for the future, and what was really going to happen. He can understand why that might have fucked her up a little. It certainly explains a few things.

She’s seen a lot of things, mostly stuff she doesn’t remember now, but a lot of them seem to be different things happening in the exact same point of time. Like optional paths in a video game, but the walkthrough got wiped from the annals of the internet. Maybe all of the possibilities she saw in there were equally plausible, and that’s why she could see it all, there in the void of Its disgusting maw. Stan, in the bathtub. Stan, at home with his wife and his bird jigsaws. Stan, beside them in this fucking dump.

The bathtub was the clearest, she said. Maybe that meant it was most likely to happen. Maybe that meant it was the one she was most afraid of.

Richie gets the privilege of experiencing the Deadlights while they’re getting dunked on underneath the Neibolt house. He got caught up in them… a moment ago? A year ago? Anyway. A while ago. And though he does think he was kind of a Grade A idiot for getting got, he’s also sort of smug. He called the clown a sloppy bitch, right to Its ugly fucking face. He’d pat himself on the back if he hadn’t astral-planed right out his damn body.

He can’t hear anything in here.

But he sees a lot of things, there in the Deadlights. He knows he won’t remember them clearly if he ever gets to leave them. It’s all too much to look at. Too much to feel.

He knows he’ll remember this, though. Eddie. He –

In an instant, he’s dropped back into reality, literally. His head _cracks_ against the ground, the pain radiating out behind his eyes and a solid nine tenths of the Deadlight illusions whipping straight out of his skull. Beyond the stars in his vision, he sees Eddie over him. Glorious in his victory; dirtied, bloodied, elated. Smiling bigger than the Sun. It hasn’t happened yet.

He wants to drag Eddie in, push him to the side, move just that little bit that tiny little bit it’s all he needs he can see it coming he can _see it_ –

Blood, warm, spatters against his face.

In an instant, the images coalesce. Options stutter across his concussed mind. He can’t work his way through them. There’s one long moment where they look at each other. He saw it. Them. All of the possibilities. This exact second is somewhere in there. There in the Deadlights.

“Richie,” Eddie wheezes, with Richie’s hands on his shirt, tucked up tight in the hem.

Its claw has pierced him, somewhere huge and devastating between his pectoral and his collarbone, too far left to pierce his heart, too far right not to have left a lung unscathed. Something thick and gelatinous dangles from the end of the hook between them. It splats heavy on Richie’s jeans, which are already wet and ruined from his piss or the piss of a thousand Derry residents, he’s not sure.

His hands have dragged Eddie down to him. Some of the options blister and pop into nothingness. But not all of them.

The image in his head, the one where Eddie is pierced in that absolutely fatal place between heart and stomach, fizzles and sparks. It isn’t quite destroyed by this alternative, wobbling precariously on the edge of this reality, and that means it might still. That he might still. That he.

The claw ascends, starts to take Eddie with it, a weak, dirty little marionette, and Richie _pulls_ , pulls as hard as his numb hands can take, Eddie’s shirt tearing, and Eddie _unsticks_ with this wet, horrible _noise_ , the kind Richie knows he will never forget, not ever, it will follow him until the moment he dies, which still might be soon, if they don’t do something. If he doesn’t stop Eddie from bleeding out, and they fall.

Where his shoulder has been all but destroyed, Eddie’s arm is limp and useless.

“Eddie,” Richie says. Pennywise _roars_ , and he lunges them back, away, into the safety of the dark, sharp stones. His wrist and his lower back sprain, screaming at him, but none of that matters. He tears his outer shirt off, presses it hard to Eddie’s convulsing chest. He presses them deep into an alcove in the stone, wet and cold and frightened together. Eddie is trying to say something, but his voice is gone, shot. The light is too dim; are his lips turning blue? Both of their breaths are fast and shallow.

“It’s okay, buddy,” he says. “I got you. I got you.”

He's never meant anything more.

Still, Eddie is staring at him, trying to speak. “Don’t,” Richie insists, throat tight, trying not to cry. He can’t do this. His vision is shit behind these dirt-streaked glasses enough as it is. He can’t blind himself with tears, too. Eddie would always clean them for him. He could always count on it. On him. “Don’t talk, Eddie. I got you.”

Eddie’s hand flutters against his, soaked in the bundle of shirt that’s hiding Eddie’s wound from the sky. The pat is soft, frantic. Richie is definitely crying. God, there’s spit and mucous and Eddie is never going to let him live it down if he gets any of this shit on his stupid, stupid polo.

 _Go_ , he’s mouthing.

“No,” Richie says, sobs. He chokes on thick saliva in the back of his throat. “Eddie. I’m not –“

 _Go,_ he insists, and through the pain, his expression morphs into, fuck, it changes into that angry chipmunk fury he always loved so much. Those eyebrows coming down, almost eclipsing his cute doe eyes. He’s so goddamn beautiful and he never got to. He never got the chance to –

In his mind, he can hear Eddie Kaspbrak’s furious self-righteousness clearly.

 _‘You will not abandon our_ fucking _friends in the eleventh hour, you dipshit. You got that? You will go out there and you will kick clown booty, on my behalf, and I will sit here and bleed and cheer you on. You hear me, you fuck? I’ll die of shame before you can wail all over me like fucking Romeo.’_

“Eddie,” he sobs, all snot and spit and greywater, but Eddie’s hand flutters a slap against his cheek, weak as a butterfly’s wing but enough to make him look up into his eyes, feel his resolve proper. He smears blood and dirt across his mouth as his cold fingers fall back to his chest.

So he goes.

He can’t not.

-

Eddie beats the clown to death with his fucking arm.

When they rip absolute _shit_ into the sack of crap that’s been making their lives miserable for thirty years, when they’re _winning,_ with the power of _imagination_ and _childhood belief_ , just like last time, with Bev’s silver slugs and Eddie’s inhaler, _with Eddie’s fence spike_ ; god Eddie is such a _fucking champ;_ Bill has the brilliant, _brilliant_ idea to carry the trembling Cabbage Patch Freak over to Eddie, to help finish the job.

“G-gotta do it togeth- to-together,” he says, emphatic and absolutely badass. Richie thinks all of the Losers fall for him a little in that moment.

So they all demure, while Bill reaches in for Pennywise’s beating fucking heart, like It has a heart, like It deserves to even pretend like It does, and Ben carries Its body over to the alcove Eddie’s been dying in.

Eddie looks _furious._

 _Why are you bringing It here??_ he practically screams, voiceless and blue. Richie’s shirt is – fuck. It’s _inside him now._ He must have wedged it straight into the wound while they were busy heckling It. The ragged remains of Richie’s impeccable sense of style is being held in there with a makeshift sling, which he somehow crafted from his outer shirt.

His arm is on the ground.

Abruptly, Ben turns away and throws up, hocking Pennywise’s deflated form to the ground like trash. Bev even looks a little green under all that red.

‘His shirt was the only thing keeping that arm attached,’ Richie thinks, and also throws up. This has to be a new record for him. A personal best, really.

“Okay, don’t s-s-surround him in fucking r _-rings_ of vomit, you d-d-degenerates.”

Richie laughs, and promptly chokes on bile.

 _Fuck_ , Eddie mouths, and keeps on mouthing it over and over again, nudging Pennywise’s rotten pumpkin head away with his knee. Bill’s still carrying Its heart.

“We thought you should get in on this,” Mike says helpfully, after rubbing Ben’s back.

No one rubs Richie’s back. Fuckers.

“I can go get the fence spike,” Bev suggests, but with a glance around, none of them are sure where it might have gotten to.

“Does he even have the energy?” Ben starts to ask, but Eddie’s face only gets more furious as Bill brings the heart down to his level, and only more horrified as they all lay their hands on it. Circled over him and Pennywise, Mike’s and Richie’s hands meet on the back of Eddie’s neck. He’s icy cold.

 _Fuck_ , Eddie says.

Mike pets him as they bring the heart just a little bit closer. “Eddie, can you –“

“Fuck,” Eddie says, aloud, as he lifts up his disembodied arm.

They crush the heart, and Eddie beats the motherfucking life out of that motherfucking clown.

-

The rush to escape the Neibolt house is frantic.

The old building collapses in a rush, injuring them all with debris far more effectively than the clown ever did. Bev is almost certainly concussed in the escape, and Ben practically eviscerates himself on exposed nails, like Henry Bowers’ ghost is trying one last time to carve himself into Ben’s stomach, but they make it out. They’d have made it out sooner if Eddie hadn’t passed out and Richie hadn’t thought he’d died. Wailing like Romeo.

It's a struggle enough to all heft themselves out, let alone carry Eddie too. Richie tries to take the arm with them, but he’s already slowing them down with his concussed balance and his cracked glasses, so Richie wastes even more time crying and insisting they can keep it, that it can be reattached, that they can winch it to his fucking waist with one of their shirts, come on guys, get naked already, until Bill has to literally hold his face in his hands and tell him to get the fuck over himself.

“We’ll all die here if you h-hold on to it.”

So he lets it go.

In the end, he can’t not.

-

“I’m getting coffee. You want?”

Derry’s ‘hospital’ is something of a slap in the face, when they get there. Richie can’t speak for the rest of the Losers, but having lived in a big city, and being a celebrity with passable health insurance, he’s surprised by how… _small_ , Derry’s is. Everything’s yellowed. There’s a plaque on the wall that says this place got rebuilt in the 50’s, having once been a sanitorium, and it doesn’t look as if it’s been refurbished since then. Just stuffed with slightly more up-to-date kit. It doesn’t look like the kind of place Eddie would _survive_ in, let alone _like_.

He died in Ben’s arms. Just for a moment, as they piled through the front doors.

Ben was screaming. Richie knows he was, too. Eddie was already three quarters dead as it was, and then they had to go and get water in his lungs, and he definitely got raked across nails and bits of rock and wood while they were trying to get him out, and then they had to actually run his limp body all the way to the hospital, hocked over Ben’s shoulder like a sack of potatoes and trailing blood all the way, and, and, _fuck_. He lost his _fucking arm._

_‘It's just a fucking Eye! Fight It! You hear me? Fight It, Bill! Kick the shit out of the sucker! Jesus Christ you fucking pussies I'm doing the Mash Potatoes all over It AND I GOT A BROKEN ARM!’_

It’s like it was destined to happen. Pennywise, and arms. Not just Eddie’s, past and present. Eddie Corcoran’s, too. Who woulda thought they’d be repeating the same old traumas over and over ‘til the clown got squashed.

“No thanks,” Bev says, voice hoarse, and gives Richie a nudge. He only squeezes out a weak ‘no’, barely audible to himself, let alone Mike. Ben looks equally harrowed, and only a gentle knock from Bev gets him to look at them all, soft and bewildered. Richie can’t look at him. He’s so fucking beautiful. They’re all so. _Fuck_.

Bill doesn't want any either, but he still goes with Mike. It’s only halfway down the hall that they hear Mike start to sob.

He never could cry in front of them. A tough family, he said. ‘You gotta destroy the sheep face to face, and you can’t cry,’ he said once.

Same old traumas.

The halls are quiet, and the kind of warm that’s distinctly uncomfortable, like in a crowded club. They’ve been sitting here for hours, on these dinky little metal chairs bolted straight into the wall, with absolutely no lumbar support to be seen a mile around. Richie’s sprained lower back is in fucking agony. The doctors took Eddie in to get his heart started and no one’s come out in a long, long while. They’d have come back if he was dead by now.

Which means he’s alive.

Maybe. Or they can’t tell the Losers anything, because none of them are next of kin. Maybe they’ve called the police. Maybe they’re holding the body for. For her. His wife. Myra.

Bev told the nurse that Richie was Eddie’s husband. That they were in the Neibolt house when it collapsed. Eddie fell on a big rock, punched right through his shoulder, knocked his arm clean off. It fell in the hole, so they couldn’t get it. They carried him out.

She’d said that Richie was Eddie’s husband.

Richie was Eddie’s.

He’s not sure they believed her. They looked. Well. Frightened, for one. A bunch of Losers, covered in blood and grime, hysterically holding a fresh one-armed corpse? They must have called the cops. It was only a few minutes later, when a nurse ran in ranting about ‘the old Neibolt shack finally collapsed in on itself, can you believe?! Here, my brother just sent me the video! It’s incredible! I hope no one got –‘ and then stopped, seeing the Losers covered in the aforementioned blood and grime, and turned away in embarrassment. The nurses believed Bev then.

But believing that _Richie was_ _Eddie’s_ _husband_? He wasn’t sure. Could you get arrested for pretending you were next of kin? Probably. Like an insurance fraud thing, or something. Is that what it would count as? Eddie’s a risk analyst, he’ll have his own dang insurance. Really fucking good insurance too, he bets, better than anything Richie ever had. They’d told the nurses his full name, so it’s not like they wouldn’t have a record of him, complete with all his ailments past and present, fake and real, allergies and asthma and all the shit his mom controlled him with. That information would include his insurance details. His emergency contacts.

They’d see Richie wasn’t there. That Richie wasn’t. Wasn’t.

But it’s been well over two hours, and no one has come for them. No one’s stepped out, accusing him of being a big fat gay faker. He hates this limbo, though. The waiting. Someone’s going to come out at some point, and it’s either to call him out for being a big fat gay faker, or to tell them all that Eddie is dead.

In the end, it’s neither.

“He’s in recovery,” a nurse tells them, after four hours have passed, and Bev’s managed to convince them all to get up and have a hobo wash in the bathrooms. Ben actually faints, just for a moment, his eyelids fluttering as he sinks into Mike’s side. “We had to perform emergency surgery… as I’m sure you can understand.” Here, his expression is entirely inscrutable as he eyes them all. “And as I’m sure you can understand as well, we’ve had to contact the police.”

Richie feels his own fainting spell come on. They’ve caught him out.

“The Neibolt house was old and unoccupied, as everyone in Derry knows,” the nurse continues, even as Bill’s arms rush to hold Richie up. He hadn’t realised he was quite this close to keeling over. “To be frank, it was an ancient piece of shit, but for it to collapse like that…”

“You think we had something to do with it,” Mike supplies, and if the nurse is at all concerned with how relieved his tone is, he doesn’t remark on it.

“I’d appreciate it if you all stuck around.”

“We w-won’t be going anywh-where,” Bill says with conviction.

The nurse nods, once, and then turns to go back into the ICU.

“Uh – when,” Richie blurts. “Um. When can we see him?”

The nurse turns back to them, and his expression is all business, but there’s a slight kind crinkle to his eyes. “Mr Kaspbrak is in a pretty serious condition, so not right now. We can’t say exactly when he’ll be fit for visitors, but we’ll only allow immediate family when that time comes, so not all of you.” His smile is apologetic. “And, as the police will shortly be getting involved, we can’t guarantee there won’t be supervised visitation.”

Richie sags into Bill again. Oh. Fuck.

The nurse clucks his tongue. “Mr Kaspbrak’s paperwork states that his next of kin and power of attorney is his _wife_ , but I understand how people can forget to update medical paperwork, so I’d recommend telling him to get on that once he’s recovered. It could cause quite an issue with his insurance in the future.”

“Holy shit,” Bev says.

“ _Thank you,_ ” Bill says.

The nurse nods, and this time, they let him go.

“Holy _shit!_ ” Bev yells, once the ICU doors swing shut behind him. She grabs Richie by his dirty lapels, and smacks a big ol’ kiss right on his mouth.

The laugh that bursts out of him is brighter than anything he could ever have imagined.

“Holy shit!” he yells back, and grabs the back of her head, pressing his lips hard against her forehead. Her face and hands are about the only part of her that are reasonably clean after their pitiable washdowns in the bathrooms. There’s dried blood on her hairline. She’s beautiful, and alive. And then they’re beset upon by a gaggle of dirty Losers, their silhouettes broken up in Richie’s broken, bloodied glasses, and he’s _happy._ Really, truly, _happy._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Speaking of arms, Georgie's gets chomped too, but Richie wouldn't know that. I did wonder if it was meant to be symbolic, especially since in the book Eddie dies from blood-loss from his arm getting bitten off as well. A start and an end, I guess.


	4. Chapter 4

Eddie, hypochondriac extraordinaire, gets an infection in hospital. But it takes them a long while to find that out.

Honestly, it’d be much more surprising if he _didn’t_ catch something, considering all the blood and piss and grime his insides got exposed to under the Neibolt house. Parts of him that never should have seen the light of day saw extra-terrestrial clown claw, and who knows what kind of alien cooties Pennywise might have been carrying. He could start growing a second head any day now. He’d be a fucking medical marvel.

He’s not even the only one who comes down with something. All of them get a stomach bug, probably from accidentally swallowing the dirty water they’d had to jump into to escape the collapse, or, y’know, from something boring and mundane like existential terror. Richie, Bill _and_ Bev all get pink eye. Ben’s wounds from the nails and shit stabbing him on their escape get inflamed and pus a little, but he says he’s up to date on his tetanus, and it all settles down after a week of keeping clean and letting Nurse Beverley wipe medicated goop all over his washboard abs real slow like.

Eddie’s case is a bit more extreme, obviously. None of the Losers knew it at the time, but the doctors had to ring out for an emergency delivery of extra blood from the next hospital over, because Eddie was so exsanguinated and little town hospitals aren’t exactly brimming over with surplus. While they were all busy giving statements to some… concerningly relaxed cops, true a la Derry, it was decided by the medical powers that be that the recovery period for Eddie was too much for their podunk little town, so they were planning to palm him off to the next major hospital over.

In the interim, they called Myra, and with her permission and her tears, they shipped him away.

None of the Losers were informed when he left; it happened while Bill was busy corroborating their stories for the fifth time over. They were all corralled in a quiet little corner of the hospital, sipping shitty vending machine coffee, and Eddie was being emergency transferred right under their noses.

They’re not relatives, and calling Myra Kaspbrak revealed that Richie was not, in fact, Eddie’s husband, so none of them got to say goodbye.

They found out they couldn’t see Eddie after finalising their statements. They were told he was being moved. They couldn’t explain anything else. He was gone.

Richie wasn’t the only one to start crying.

That evening, exhausted and grimy, they all went back to the inn in silence. Though none of them talked about it, they somehow all came to the agreement to hole up in Bill’s room after they’d showered properly and had something to eat that wouldn’t start wiggling around the table spitting up eyes and blood. Bill had sprung for a king, so they formed a cuddle puddle of morose forty-somethings and just listened to each other breathe.

In a more romantic world, it would have taken them a long time to fall asleep. Instead, exhaustion knocked every single one of them out within the hour.

If Richie dreamt, he doesn’t remember it.

In the morning, Mike got a call from the police. Since they were all staying together anyway, and Mike knew a couple of guys on the department since he was an actual Derry resident and everyone knew everyone, he was the only one to get a call.

‘Off the record’, the guy on the phone stated, with the kind of laugh that made Richie think he and Mike were maybe pals; it turned out they’d probably all get off scot free. The Neibolt house was unoccupied, after all, and the last person to inherit the deed to the plot died a solid fifteen years ago. The bank took it after nobody bid on the property at auction, so it’d been sitting as an ugly old eyesore for years. The way it collapsed in on itself was apparently so inexplicably clean, so perfect, that it was considered something of a blessing. Something might even get built there one day; bring buyers back to the street.

“Nothing official, you understand,” the officer said, “But tell your guys they don’t really gotta worry.”

After that, well, there was no reason to stick around Derry. All of them had their own lives, with their jobs and partners and whatnot, so why stay? Especially since It was gone, and it wasn’t like anyone was gonna inform them about Eddie’s health by staying put. Mike wanted to finally go see Florida, anyway, so he decided to leave Derry proper. He’d kept all his dreams on hold for all these years, and now he could be free.

It was scary, though. The leaving.

They made concrete, almost hypervigilant plans to keep in touch with text and their own Losers group chat, and promised to call at least once a week, to make sure they kept their memories. Bill said he was thinking about writing everything they did down in a kind of semi-autobiography, and since Mike had spent the last thirty years tediously documenting every last scrap of clown lore he could get his hands on, Mike promised to make up a SparkNotes list of everything that he’d carry with him on his travels, to transcribe it for Bill to use later. He was their little librarian godsend.

Their little librarian godsend who also had Eddie’s number.

Honestly, the first time Mike brought it up, Richie cried _again._ Holy _shit._ Why hadn’t it crossed his mind that Mike had had to contact Eddie the same way he’d had to contact the rest of them? In his panic and his grief, he’d assumed they’d never hear from Eddie again, that he was gone forever. But Mike Hanlon was the patron saint of unearthing cell phone numbers. He had it, right there in black and white. Eddie’s contact.

The problem, though, was that ringing the number only lead to dial tone. The phone was either off, disconnected, or dropped down into the depths of the Neibolt house. None of the Losers knew if Eddie had had his phone on his person when he got shanked. Mike and Ben had checked all his shit he’d left behind in his room, and no phone to be found. If it had been with him, it could have drowned in greywater, gotten crushed against the rocks, fallen out of his pockets in the clamber up and out of the decaying well. The chances of it having survived all that was slim, which was why Richie had decided against bringing his own at the time. Who needs service when you think you’re walking to your greasepainted doom, anyway? If he survived, he wanted his phone nice and clean and intact to order the most decadent reverse-last-meal known to man.

Of course, this was all pre-Eddie-getting-shanked, so the meal they had was kind of shit, all told – fuck, they literally just got sandwiches at a convenience store – but… there was potential. For a real reverse-last-meal. With everybody.

Because, okay. Eddie was gone. But they had his phone number. And if he had his phone somewhere safe and sound, then great! As soon as he woke up, as soon as he was… shit, was safe, was happy, was _healthy_ , he could see all the texts they sent him. If his phone was kaput, he could get a new one with the old number, so all they had to do was… keep texting, so that whenever the new phone came to life, it’d have something from them. Richie couldn’t see someone like Eddie enjoying changing his phone number, informing all his contacts, updating all his subscriptions to things. It'd be too tedious. He’d stick with what he had.

The Losers promised to text Eddie every week. Richie promised himself he’d text every day.

And so, they parted ways.

Going back home was a relief, and also the most depressing thing Richie thinks he’s ever experienced, besides that year-long period between college and his first proper gig where he sofa-surfed and did the swap your underpants forwards and backwards to save on the washing thing. He goes back to his nice apartment, the kind baby Richie used to dream of, with its big windows and its ice dispenser and its takeout menus in every room, and when he finally stops crying and calls his agent, he immediately asks for a week hiatus. The poor guy had to deal with him dumping everything and hightailing it for Maine, and now this, but now he just seems delighted when Richie says he’s thinking of writing his own material again. He asks for the week just to get himself back in the groove, and he’s granted it. Shit, Richie, baby, take _two_. Richie Tozier’s never had time off before, since he’s never had a partner, or kids, or a fucking hobby to distract himself from comedy, so it’s no problem!

He doesn’t actually write anything, but he does throw all his booze down the sink – except the good whiskey, because he’s not a fucking barbarian – and he gets to talk to the Losers every night, which is good.

Every morning at nine am, he texts Eddie.

It has to be nine am, because he knows if he doesn’t keep it as some sort of like… appointment, in his head, he won’t be able to resist the urge to text Eddie’s number every moment he gets. It’s nine or nothing. Plus, it gets him on a reasonable sleep schedule. He doesn’t want to be too repetitive, but if he lets himself be open and honest he knows he’s gonna go way over his monthly limit, so he sticks to the basics.

**To: Eds**

**I got the words ‘jacuzzi’ and ‘yakuza’ confused today. Now I’m in hot water with the Japanese mafia.**

The time he spends Not Texting Eddie is Losers time. The group chat is always active. Mike keeps them posted to a tedious degree on his every step to get himself out Derry, from putting up a job vacancy for a new full-time librarian, to filling in the paperwork to relinquish his apartment, to taking photos of all his bits of Pennywise lore throughout history for Bill. He even tells them about putting all his shit in storage ‘til he can sell it on Craigslist.

Bev sends lots of pictures of her latest works. She also sends a photo of her divorce papers. She thinks Tom will probably fight it, but she’s getting a restraining order and she doesn’t see any major problems going forward. Just in case, though, she and Ben are staying apart, since Tom might try and use it against her in court. They intend to get together properly once it’s settled. There’s no rush.

Ben sends pictures of cosy rooms and cute animals that he finds on Reddit. He plans to attempt to do an AMA on there one day about Hanscom & Associates. He wants to build youth community centres that feel like clubhouses.

Bill’s finishing up his film, and writing better endings. He’s dedicating his next work to Stan.

Richie sends them a photo of his carving. ‘R + E’. And then starts bombing them all with memes so he doesn’t have to see it on screen anymore.

Bill sends back a picture of an opossum wearing a feather boa. Richie takes that to mean that everyone’s on board with the whole gay thing.

And every day, Richie texts Eddie.

**To: Eds**

**If I had a nickel for every time I didn’t understand something, I’d be like “why are you giving me all these nickels?”**

Every day.

**To: Eds**

**My grandfather kept warning people that the Titanic was going to sink. In the end, they had to kick him out of the movie theater.**

Nine am is the most important part of Richie’s day. Even after his week off is up, and he starts writing comedy proper and doing shows again, he still keeps it up. Nine am becomes slightly less viable a wake-up time for a guy whose job is mostly evening work, but he still keeps it up.

For two more months, he keeps it up.

**To: Eds**

**I threw a boomerang a couple years ago. I now live in constant fear.**

And then, there in his bed, naked at nine in the morning with one hand scratching his junk, Eddie’s name appears on his screen. His ringtone blares.

His whole body stops. His hands. His breath.

_Bev. Somebody. Help._

He accepts the call.

“Stop sending me crappy jokes, Richie. You can do better.”

_Oh._

“Eddie?” he says.

_It’s you._

“Yeah. I lived, bitch.”

He starts crying. There, in his bed, in his nice apartment with its blackout curtains and kitchen island covered in whiskey bottles, he starts sobbing.

“Jesus Christ,” Eddie says, but even over the phone he sounds fond. “You’re crying? I’m the one who lost an arm and a chunk of my lung. I got an infection in hospital, can you fuckin’ believe it? I thought hospitals were supposed to be clean.”

Richie hitches a laugh around a fat phlegmy sob. He sits up – lying back is making tears leak into his ears, and that’s just gross. Grosser than the phlegm, somehow. “Should’ve –“ he says, around a hiccup, “Should’ve given them pointers.”

“They’d probably have kept me in longer if I hadn’t annoyed the shit out of them with all my griping.”

“Griping? You?” Richie swipes his wet face against his forearm. “Never.”

“… It’s good to hear your voice, man.”

That gets the waterworks going again, so much so that Eddie calls Richie’s sniffing gross and tells him to just put him on speakerphone already. Just for that, Richie makes sure to honk into a tissue real loud. He’s got a box sitting all nice and pretty on his bedside table, and it’s not even strictly for wanking. Turns out post-Pennywise Richie Tozier cries a _lot_. Cries with laughter just as much as sorrow, now, both things he never _cared_ enough to do before, and that’s. Well. It’s kinda nice, actually.

“How are you doing, Richie?”

He sniffles, soft and pathetic and still very naked. God, he feels so raw and so happy. “I’m the one who should be asking you that. Shit, Eds. I’m good. Real fucking good, now I know you’re okay.”

_I’ve been thinking about you constantly._

“Yeah. Me too.” Eddie pauses, just for a sec, and Richie wonders when he’ll get told off for calling him ‘Eds’. It doesn’t happen. “Listen. I’m still recovering, but I was thinking of… maybe visiting? Sometime?”

Richie’s mouth opens.

“… What?”

“Visiting,” Eddie repeats, slowly, like he thinks Richie’s an idiot. “Me. Visiting you.”

“You want to come see me?”

“That’s what I just said, dipshit.”

“ _Holy fuck_ ,” Richie breathes, and then wants desperately to grab the tear-stained pillow from under his pasty butt and scream in to it. “Of course, Eds. Visit me. Mi casa es su casa. We could invite everyone.” He pinches his inner elbow to stop a hysterical laugh from bubbling out of him. “No, wait. Mike can’t. He’s traveling. Finally got out of Derry.”

“Yeah,” Eddie says faintly. Richie wishes, desperately, to see his face. “He’s been texting me. Everyone’s been… I got a new phone, since my old one got… I dunno, lost in Its lair, or something. I feel like I’m up to date on every single one of you Losers.” Then, a burst of tinny speakerphone laughter, and Richie’s heart is so full it hurts. “Except you, I guess. All you do is send me jokes.”

“I’m a man of mystery, Eds. You have no idea where I am right now. I could be in ze arms of a beautiful foreign honeypot trying to get ze nuclear codes out of me for her communist leaders.” He lays the Russian accent on real thick, and is utterly delighted by Eddie’s big, ugly guffaw. He always responded best to the Voices, good and bad.

“You’re such a fuckin’ cheeseball. How did anyone let you get on television?”

“Maybe _I’m_ the honeypot, Spagheds.”

Eddie fucking _loses_ it, all of a sudden, bright and loud and fucking wonderful. “Fuck, Richie! My fucking – my stitches –“ He’s incoherent for a beautifully long time. “… Fuck. My ribs. They got fucking shattered, dude. Laughing – hurts –“ he chokes. He doesn’t sound too mad about it.

“Is it really that funny thinking I couldn’t seduce my way onto TV?” Richie says, just to fuck with him.

“Stop!” Eddie yells, giggling. “… Fuck. Oh, fuck. No, seriously. Ow. I need –“ There’s a clattering on the line, though what he’s doing exactly Richie has no idea. “… There. Jesus Christ, Rich. You’re bad for my health.”

Richie opens his mouth to make a rebuttal, but then Eddie speaks again.

“Look. When I said I’m, that I’m up to date with everyone except you, I.” Another round of fumbling, and then a long, very tinny sigh. “I meant. I’ve probably lost a whole bunch of texts between whenever you all started and when I got a new phone, so I’m not _that_ up to date, so I’ll see everyone at some point, but. I want to see everyone sometime, but it’s… my doctor doesn’t recommend big get-togethers, and I’m, like, the least… the least up to date with _you,_ anyway, and –“ There’s a pause, where Richie waits with actual bated breath because if he breathes properly the hysteria really might pop out. “… I just want to see you, Richie.”

Oh _fuck_.

“Yeah?” Richie squeaks.

Eddie laughs, the sound as high and nervous as it ever was when they were kids.

“Yeah.”

 _Oh fuck. Fuck. Oh fuck_.

“I’ll call you,” Eddie says, after a long moment where they sit together in silence, where Richie has no fucking idea what that silence means except for on his own end, where it’s spent trying not to scream to the heavens that Eddie Kaspbrak is alive and well and wants to come visit him.

“We have a group chat,” Richie blurts.

“Yeah. Mike added me to it just before I called you. I already messaged everyone. Sorry I… got to you last. Well. Not last. I texted everyone, but… you’re the first one I called.”

He’s going to burst.

“Send nudes,” he says, chokes out, and Eddie laughs.

“In your dreams, Tozier,” Eddie says. “Anyway. I’ll keep you posted. Maybe I’ll even call tomorrow, if you’re good.”

_Oh FUCK._

“Eddie –“

“Mm?”

“Uh. Nothing. I’m. I’m glad you’re okay.”

“Thanks, Rich. I’ll talk to you soon.”

Richie flings himself down on the bed and _screams_ , no pillow to silence him. His neighbours are going to think he’s getting murdered, but he doesn’t give a shit. He is _ecstatic, delirious_ in his delight, and if the police get called on his naked ass, so fucking be it. Eddie Kaspbrak is _alive._ Eddie Kaspbrak wants to come _see him._

He's so full of jubilant energy that he kicks his arms and legs about like a child throwing a tantrum, whacking his hand against his bedside table, knocking over his lamp and the box of tissues. The pain doesn’t even take away any of his excitement. He has to get up and take a very jiggly nude run around his apartment. Fuck, he has to _clean_.

He doesn’t know when Eddie’ll visit, when he’ll be safe enough to fly, or whatever, but he needs to get on top of the tidying up right the fuck now. He’s so fucking _happy._

-

A trip out for cleaning supplies and three hours of scrubbing and spritzing and organising later, Richie drops his sweaty self back down on his couch to check the group chat. He has to scroll way back – seems it’s been going pretty wild without him.

**Eddie Kaspbrak has been added to The Losers Club by Micycle**

**Big Bill: @Eddie Kaspbrak nice to see you’re alive, buddy. we missed you**

**Eddie Kaspbrak: Good to be back**

**Molly Ringwald: !!!!!!!! EDDIE**

**Molly Ringwald changed Eddie Kaspbrak’s Nickname to Best Child**

**Best Child: What the fuck why**

**Molly Ringwald: cant believe you only text me to say ‘hi’. like what the fukv??? holy SHIT EDDIE. HELLO. OH MY GOD. HOW ARE YOU**

**Best Child: About 10lb lighter all told**

**Big Bill: :DDDDD lol**

**Best Child: What is it with this shit and my fucking arm? My dominant arm, too. I’ve been writing ‘My name is Eddie Kaspbrak’ over and over like I’m doing lines in detention**

**Molly Ringwald: pics? also can i call you now please please? are you busy? pls**

Obligingly, Eddie has sent a photo of his childish scrawl which, sure enough, has ‘My name is Eddie Kaspbrak’ written on it a dozen times, just below a copy of the alphabet. In one corner, Eddie has clearly written ‘fuck this’, underlined six times.

**Best Child: Putting pants on with one arm is a fucking nightmare. Taking them down to piss is also a fucking nightmare. Typing is a nightmare**

**Micycle: Welcome back, Eddie.**

**Best Child: @Molly Ringwald I’ll call you now**

Richie smiles, big and bright. God, it’s such innocuous bullshit but it’s tugging at his heartstrings something fierce, reading this.

He scrolls through a bit more, sees Ben absolutely ecstatic, both he and Bill showering the chat with emojis and wholesome memes, getting Eddie to promise to call them too, which, from the spates of silence from the both of them following, he must do immediately after hanging up with Bev. There’s general jubilance and good feelings all round, and then Richie reads something that makes his heart flutter so hard he thinks he might be having a heart attack.

**Haystack: @Molly Ringwald @Big Bill @Micycle @Best Child @Trashmouth I AM SO HAPPY??? MEET SOON MEET SOON MEET SOON**

**Molly Ringwald: YES MEET SOON MEET SOON MEET SOON**

**Best Child: Honestly I feel like I’m being left out here**

**Best Child changed their Nickname to Spaghetti**

_OH FUCK._

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Be rootin', be tootin', and by god be shootin'.
> 
> But most of all,
> 
> be kind


	5. Chapter 5

Richie is losing his fucking mind.

It takes about six hours nonstop to get from New York to Beverly Hills, because Eddie is still a hyper-focused nervous wreck who would rather shoot himself than take a connecting flight if he can avoid it. He’s not a nervous flier, which is kind of shocking in its own right, but making sure he gets to the right gate on time, and worrying if his luggage will make it on the other side really gets to him, apparently. Though, he carried so much with him to Derry before, Richie has a hard time believing anyone could misplace a stack that huge. They spent hours being bratty over the phone with each other about it, just because Eddie needed someone to talk to while he waited, to get the nervous energy out.

Now Richie’s the one waiting. Waiting while Eddie boards. Waiting while Eddie flies. Waiting while Eddie lands and gets the luggage that hopefully has not gone missing in the interim.

They debated between themselves for days as to whether or not Richie should meet him in the airport, or wait outside. People could clock it was him, the great Richie Tozier, and then there’d be people making the funnies at him, asking for his photograph, and otherwise driving Eddie round the fucking bend until he either shot himself in the head or dragged Richie away by his lapels. And that was sure to get photographs and Twitter mentions, and Eddie made it very, very clear over their correspondence that he’d definitely shoot Richie in the head first if that ever happened.

He'd rather die than be famous, which is sort of adorable since more than half of his friends are like, actual celebrities. Like, okay, they’re not as likely to be noticed on the street as Richie, but people who know their respective fields will definitely recognise Bev or Bill, and Ben is like, the Jeff Bezos of architecture.

It’s also sort of, maybe, a tiny bit worrying. Like, maybe Richie’s getting ahead of himself – wow, what a shock, who woulda thought – but if he and Eddie are ever like, a _thing,_ even if that _thing_ is just friends who see each other sometimes, then the possibility of getting papped is going to be a real concern in the future. He doesn’t think Eddie will actually shoot him if that happens, but he’ll definitely get angry, and then he’ll get nervous, and if he gets nervous then maybe he’ll say he doesn’t want to visit anymore. Maybe he’ll be cool with meeting all the Losers together, since the more famous amongst them could act as a big ol’ Famous People buffer, and he and Mike would be equally un-famous together, but one on one… Shit. He might not want to see Richie again. It’s already a fucking long flight across the entire literal country, so it’s not like he won’t have an excuse not to do it again.

This might be the one and only time, if people catch wind of them.

So, Richie stays in his car.

It’s nerve wracking. He keeps checking his clock, checking the flight schedule, checking his texts and the Losers group chat, on and on until his brain hurts. He’s going to wear himself out mentally, and he needs that to quit right the fuck now, because he needs at least some of his last frayed nerve to safely drive them back to his place. There aren’t exactly any wayward cows to worry about this time, but he could still crash into the back of some trophy wife’s Lambo and kill them both.

Eddie would absolutely haunt his ass. Two bratty idiot ghosts, bickering with each other into eternity.

Fuck. That’s sort of cute.

He baps his head gently against the steering wheel, doots the horn with his nose because he’s an idiot. Fuck.

“What the fuck, Richie?”

He screams.

Eddie jumps back, nearly falling over his luggage behind him, and Richie holds his chest as Eddie smacks his palm against his window. “Jesus Christ, Rich! What the fuck is wrong with you?!”

“Hi,” he says, like a Big Idiot.

Eddie blesses his land and waters his crops with a big, open grin. “Open the door, you fucking disaster. Help me get my stuff in the trunk.”

-

Driving is. Weird.

It’s weird, with Eddie in the passenger seat, fiddling with his fucking fanny pack, which he totally wears now, because ‘It’s more convenient now than it ever was before, dipshit. I got one arm, remember?’ He’s got it winched around his waist, hoisted up high over the seatbelt which _no_ , he would _not_ let Richie help him to click in, _thanks_ , and the way it bunches his shirt up makes him look even more dowdy than normal. He can definitely see what Eddie’ll look like as an old man, and it’s fucking _great_.

“Keep your eyes on the road,” Eddie says, because driving is weird with Eddie in the passenger seat. He can’t stop looking.

He can’t stop noticing Eddie looking back.

“Stop looking at me, then,” Richie says, feeling belligerent and a little floaty. Maybe a little in love.

He expects something snarky back, but Eddie only scoffs, shifting around in his seat so he can look at Richie face on. Staring, big and wide. Being a bit of a bastard.

“Stop,” Richie says. His hands are starting to sweat.

“I’d say ‘make me’, but I don’t want us to fucking die, so you’ll just have to deal.”

“You’re distracting me,” Richie says, high and tight, because he is, and he sees Eddie grin wide, shark-like. He’d have thought the threat of his diminished faculties and the ensuing risk of ploughing into the central reservation would put him off, but instead it only seems to _encourage_ the vicious little gremlin. If he still had both his arms, he’d probably start threatening to _tickle_ him or something.

Instead, Eddie makes a big show of huffing and wriggling around in his seat, being thoroughly distracting and bastardly. “You know, they’ve got these clip things, for your seatbelt? Brings the seatbelt down a bit, so it doesn’t ride right over my shoulder? Fuck, I don’t even have a proper collarbone any more. This doesn’t sit right for us fucking tripods.”

Richie laughs, surprised. “I’m sorry, are you calling my car _ableist?_ ”

“That is exactly what I’m saying.” He shifts again, and Richie does see a genuine moment of discomfort pass over Eddie’s face, in yet another dangerously long moment of looking away from the road.

Oh.

He wasn’t shifting around and fiddling with his fanny pack just to be a dick. He was moving the seatbelt around because he’s fucking _hurting_.

“Sorry,” he says, dumbly.

“S’okay. Should’ve thought about it earlier.” He looks away, out the window, but Richie spots the grimace, the way it pulls on the scar on his cheek, drags his bottom eyelid down just a little.

_I killed the man who did that to you._

“Anyway. S’not that bad. Just weird. I – I should’ve kept the neck pillow; could wedge it there or something. But I put it away.” He sounds… fuck, a little embarrassed. It hurts to hear.

“We’ll get it at the next rest stop. Could do with a stretch of the ol’ chicken legs anyway.” Even though they’ve only been driving for forty minutes.

Eddie snorts, but his voice is grateful when he says “Getting old sucks.”

-

“What the _fuck_ ,” Eddie cries, throwing down his bag on the couch, while Richie struggles through the door with the contents of Eddie’s entire fucking life. “You have a fucking _doorman?_ And double security doors? What the fuck?!”

Richie hefts the bags across the threshold, and slams the door behind him, sweating like mad. God, he really is getting old. “I’m a trust fund baby, Eds. I have standards.”

“You are not, and you do not,” Eddie says, easy as anything, and plonks his butt down right in the middle of the three-seater like some sort of _heathen_. “This looks a hell of a lot better than I expected, though. Netflix star Richie Tozier got a maid?”

Richie clutches his pearls, affronted as he wheels Eddie’s shit to the guest room. “I did all this for you, Spaghetti Head! I didn’t cheat!”

He expects a snort, maybe something pithy and derisive, but nothing comes. He dumps everything against the bed, which he also made up all by himself, with brand new high-thread-count sheets he bought after frantically googling ‘what is comfortable to sleep on when you’ve been mortally wounded like, twice’, then closes the door. He won’t tell Eddie that the whole bed itself is new, that he splashed out for a hypoallergenic memory foam mattress and pillows. The whole _room_ hasn’t been used in like, _ever,_ bar those few times he’d had a jolt of motivation and decided that being in a different room might get the creative juices flowing, where he’d sit down to write at his laptop and just. Stop.

Remember that he’s not that funny. That he’s here on the power of his delivery alone. That his fame could and should be shaken out from under him at any minute.

Remember there’s no point trying. Ghost writers will do the job better. That he just has to sell what’s been given to him, and nothing more.

“Eds?”

He goes back to the living room, back to someone who genuinely thinks he’s funny, who likes his Voices, who laughs big and loud and ugly over the phone when they call each other twice a week, one Loser of many who think he’s the fucking funniest dude alive, and he sees Eddie just. Stopped. Just like he was.

“… Eds?”

Instead of on the couch, Eddie’s stood himself in front of the mantel of the fake fireplace Richie has turned on exactly once in his years of living here, when he hosted a miniature afterparty of drunken B-list comedians and he wanted it on for _atmosphere,_ or whatever. He blew a guy in his own bathroom; a sound technician, or something. Kind of a friend. They never spoke about it, or spoke _at all, ever again_. God, at least if they’d spoken he could’ve gotten some idea if he’d been any _good_ at it, could’ve gotten some pointers or something.

Anyway. The mantel, and Eddie Kaspbrak in front of the mantel.

He turns to him, face entirely unreadable, and Richie wants to say something, anything, but Eddie holds up his hand, waggling his fingers.

“Fucking spotless, Rich.”

Richie blinks.

“Uh. Yeah?”

“You did all this?”

He snorts, surprised. “Christ, Eds, it’s not like I live in Buckingham Palace. There’s like four rooms. It’s not hard.”

“I’ve seen your selfies, dude. Your place is a fucking sty most of the time.”

Richie’s mouth falls open. “It is not!”

“It is!”

“You’re a dirty little liar! I’ve been keeping this place fucking _spiffing_ ever since you –!”

Oops.

Eddie’s eyebrow arches. It pulls his eye tight both up and down, where his scar stretches the skin. Richie killed the guy who did that. Eddie ripped the knife out of his own fucking face. Holy fuck.

“Ever since I what?”

“You want takeout?” Richie deflects, desperate.

Eddie blinks. “I. Yes.”

-

“This isn’t over, Tozier,” Eddie says, as Richie finalises their order. It’d be faster to go pick it up, and that’s exactly what he plans to do, just to give him a second alone to maybe pop the airbag in his car and scream into it a little. He trusts Eddie not to burn the place down in his absence. Fuck, he’ll probably _find_ multiple fire hazards with his risk analyst monkey mind and itemise them while he’s gone.

“It _is_ fucking over,” he says, feeling bastardly.

Eddie doesn’t fight him about it when he leaves.

-

“Beverly.”

“Richard.”

He didn’t manage to pop the airbag, but he has bundled up his outer shirt and pulled it over his face, which is something. No one else is in the carpark, anyway, so he can scream almost as loud as he wants.

“I take it our Eddie has arrived safely, and therefore you are calling me to panic.”

He thunks his head against the steering wheel. This time, the horn goes unscathed. Thanks, shirt.

“I am calling you to panic, Bev.”

Beverly _hmm_ ’s, soft and without judgment. “Where’s Eddie now?”

“In the apartment. I’m in the car.”

“You _left_ him?”

Okay. Maybe a little judgment.

“I’m going to get Thai food!” he squeals in his defence. “He’s not gonna die in there without me. He’s a big strong boy.”

Bev makes a considering noise. “And you’re… letting your food get cold because…?”

“Because I am _panicking, Beverly!_ ”

He can practically _feel_ Bev move the phone away from her ear. “Jeez. Okay, got it. What’s up?”

“I love that hideous little goblin.”

Beverly sighs. “Don’t we all.”

“ _No_ ,” Richie stresses, all alone in the parking lot with his shirt over his head like some sort of lunatic. “It’s too much, Bev. I can’t do this.”

“Did he see the carving?”

Richie’s blood runs cold. “He… he got added to the chat after that, right? He can’t – he can’t see old posts, can he?”

“So you haven’t…?”

“No I have not, Beverly!” he yells, feeling like a total idiot. “What do I do? How do I come out? How do people come out?” He stops. “Scratch that. If I did it the way normal people did Eddie would think I was joking more than if I actually made a joke. How do _I_ come out, and also tell him that I’m fucking in love with him and have been since we were ten years old?”

“With a joke?”

“ _Bev._ ”

“I don’t know!” Bev cries, “What do you want from me?! I don’t have a magic Coming Out Wand that can solve all your problems!” She heaves a big, put-upon sigh, while Richie combusts in his own car. “Look. You have takeout getting cold, right? And a boy who came all this way to see you, probably wondering what’s taking so long and getting very grumpy and hungry. I live much, _much_ closer and he didn’t come to see me, did he?”

“No,” Richie mumbles.

“No is right. The first person he wanted to see, as soon as he felt fit to travel, was someone clear on the other side of the entire goddamn United States. He’s probably exhausted, but he did all that because it was to see _you._ Go get him his food and talk like I see you do over Skype.”

“That’s with all of you, though.”

“So? You’re telling me you don’t call each other up on the phone constantly? I didn’t think Eddie would lie to me about that.”

“He’s told you about us calling each other?” he squeaks, tries not to let that get to him. Oh fuck. Can she hear him grinning? He wants to ask her more about it. Should he ask her more about it?

“Go get your food, Trashmouth. You can do this.”

“… Thanks, Bev.”

“I’d say any time, but don’t.”

“Yowza.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This shit keeps getting longer. I keep telling myself one more chapter. Next up: Thai food and being actually emotionally vulnerable.
> 
> Also, what the fuck happened to Henry Bowers' corpse after he got axed? Eddie kills him in the book, and he falls down the well in the miniseries, I think? At least falling down a well you can just say his body went missing, or something.


	6. Chapter 6

Richie may or may not have straight up dissociated sometimes between picking up the takeout and getting back to his place, because it’s in an instant that he’s back, and he doesn’t remember a single thought he might have had in the interim, until they all start bombarding him at once. As he ascends the elevator, and sees himself in the mirrored walls looking thoroughly unemployed-and-unemployable, there’s this long moment of just. Whatever the not-eldritch-terror-sounding version of internal screaming is. Thoughtless and singular and yet every panicked sub-thought he’s ever had at once. It’s almost like the Deadlights – too much, and yet impossible to explain or remember the details of after the fact. Just with less imminent death, providing this very fancy elevator doesn’t malfunction and send him plummeting to his doom.

Luckily, the elevator doesn’t malfunction, doesn’t so much as hiccup, and he makes it safely onto his floor.

He takes a big, fortifying breath just before he knocks on his own front door. Breathes out as he unlocks it. Breathes in again as he steps inside. It’s something people do all the time on television, and while it doesn’t make the sub-fear stop, it’s. Something.

“Holy fuck, give me that.”

Eddie is all up in his face, because of course he is, and Richie can’t even focus on what’s happening before Eddie takes the condensation-damp bag from his hand right there in the doorway, runs it over to the kitchen island which is very clean and very free of bottles, thanks very much.

“God, I’m starving, Rich. Where d’you keep the cutlery?”

Richie snorts, relieved and a little of something else, maybe. “You’re telling me little Eduardo didn’t do a teensy-weensy bit of snooping while Papa Richard was out?”

Eddie shoots him the kind of look that could peel paint. “Daddy Dickhead more like it. Fuck you, I didn’t snoop. Cutlery.”

“Oh baby, you get me so hot when you call me like that,” Richard coos. Fuck, maybe this fortifying breathing thing really works. He should read more self-help books. “Second drawer on your left. There’s chopsticks in the bag though.”

Eddie makes a big show of turning to him real slow like, _slooooowwwly_ drawing his one working arm up into view.

Richie coughs. _Oh._ “… Right. Ixnay on the opstickschay.”

“Thanks ever so,” Eddie snarks back. Cute little bastard. There’s a long, comfortable silence where Eddie makes himself busy sorting their shit; Richie’s pad thai still in the box it came in, Eddie’s chicken massaman on a plate, because it’ll cool down faster that way, since he always sucked at handling heat even as a kid and he can spread it out flat as a pancake and pretend he isn’t technically playing with his food, even though he totally is. It’s real fuckin’ cute to see he hasn’t changed.

“Still struggle with hot food, Eddiekins?” Richie coos as the pad thai is unceremoniously shoved into his hands. The two ever so slightly warmed cans of Dr Pepper come next. “Want me to blow on it for you?”

“You can go blow your dad.”

“Yowza, Eds. I don’t remember raising you to have such a filthy mouth.”

“If we’d ever been related, I’d have shot myself and you by now,” Eddie says, easy as anything. “Come on, food’s getting cold and my arm’s getting tired.”

It dawns on him, then, as they go sit on opposite ends of the three-seater and Richie pops the tabs of the cans for them, that it makes even more sense now that Eddie’s using a plate. Richie has to use one hand just to hold the box steady while he decimates the noodles with his chopsticks in the other, and Eddie has to keep the plate flat on his knees to scoop up his rice and sauce, the totally-not-real-china wobbling just a tiny bit with the pressure of the fork. It’s weird; the things he notices now. Normal things, made different. It makes him think of the seatbelt again.

Still, a glance over at Eddie gives him the very spirit-nourishing view of his favourite little goblin man going absolutely buck wild on his massaman, any etiquette in his tiny body thrown clear out the window as he shovels peanut-y goodness into his mouth. Seems having one arm hasn’t impacted his ability to enjoy his food.

“Jesus Christ, man. It’s not going anywhere. Slow down.”

Eddie doesn’t even pause, adjusting his hold on the fork between his teeth to flash Richie his middle finger. “Fuckin’.” He swallows. “Hungry.”

“I can see that, buddy.”

Eddie’s look is scathing, but he has just enough decency to not refill his face as he speaks again. “Haven’t eaten since before the flight. You know they don’t even keep food at the right temperature on planes?” He taps his fork against the plate. “Plus that shit is garbage anyway.”

“You’re telling me you couldn’t spring a couple dollars for a bag of peanuts to tide you over? A growing boy needs his strength.” It’s surprising to Richie that he didn’t, honestly. Since he does not and has not ever had a peanut allergy, and it only took returning to Derry and destroying an eldritch abomination to remember that, their little Eduardo has made it his life’s mission to expand his culinary world with all the bread and nuts he can get his obsessively clean little hands on. Turns out Edward Kaspbrak would all but kill a man over a Reese’s Peanut Butter Cup, and it probably wouldn’t take much convincing for him to branch out to actual murder. Richie’s sort of tempted to try and take his plate away, just to see what he would do.

Edward Kaspbrak now only rolls his eyes at him.

“I wanted to eat with _you,_ dipshit.”

And that’s. Uh.

“Oh?” Richie squeaks, suddenly unable to swallow. Takes a desperate swig of his Dr Pepper. Coughs only a little.

Eddie scoops more rice onto his fork. “Yeah.”

They keep eating. Once he’s confirmed he’s not dying, it ends up being the best goddamn pad thai Richie’s ever had.

-

Sated and full, with the dishes done by _hand_ by Richie because ‘don’t you know dishwashers are _filthy_ , Rich? They’re warm, wet breeding zones for germs. Have you ever cleaned behind the rubber seal? The gunk behind it is pure rotten food, and it’s getting all over your dishes every time you turn it on. Jesus Christ.’ Which, yes actually, Richie _has_ cleaned behind the rubber seal, because he’s been keeping on top of the housework ‘ _ever since –‘_ , and yeah, the black goop he found festering back there _was_ all kinds of disgusting, even though it didn’t smell or whatever. It was just super wet and super gross. His dishwasher’s cleaner than it’s probably ever been, but he isn’t about to fight over his unappreciated hard work. Not when Eddie’s warm and well-fed and yawning so big his jaw cracks.

He comes back through the kitchen with pruney fingers and two shot glasses of brandy to find Eddie sunk back into the couch cushions, head tilted back and looking seconds away from snoring. He looks _at_ _home_ , relaxed, and Richie’s heart clenches up tight, so fucking full it hurts.

“Hey, bud,” he murmurs, slowly settling down on the couch beside him. He stirs, humming a little in that soft, barely-there way he always did as a child. Their knees are touching. “Nightcap before bed?”

“I’m getting old,” Eddie complains, but he’s smiling as he takes the shot. “What is this?”

“Brandy. A gift from the club after my first sold out gig as the main act. It’s the good shit; been saving it.” _Saving it for something important._

“Hope you didn’t open the bottle just for li’l ol’ me,” Eddie smiles, all soft edges. _Holy fuck._

Despite the good mood they’ve got going, Richie grimaces a little. He’d actually opened it after the call from Mike, once he’d gotten home from his catastrophic ‘My name is Richie ‘Trashmouth’…’ gig, and decided to systematically go through all the bottles he’d been saving, trying every single one before his assumed upcoming death in Derry. No point saving shit if you’re not coming back, was what he’d figured. That’s kind of a heavy thing to admit though, and Eddie’s here looking so content… He can’t do it to him. No reminders, not right now.

“Just opened it recently, dude. Don’t worry. You ain’t special.”

“Gee, thanks,” Eddie mutters. They tap their glasses together, fingers touching just for a moment, a lot shorter than that moment with Connor Bowers at the arcade when they were kids but ten times more thrilling, and take a sip. It really is good shit as it turns out, none of the ethanol bite you get from the cheaper stuff. He even made sure to warm it up just a little bit in his hands, because that was supposed to like… bring out the flavour, or something. He couldn’t really appreciate what he’d drank at the time, what with the imminent threat of death and such, but it’s really fucking good now, where he’s alive and Eddie’s alive and they’re alive, together. It’s mellow. The warmth spreads down his throat to his stomach, and he can see it work its magic on his already half-asleep Spaghetti Head, who looks so utterly at peace Richie swears he could take a photo and make a religion out of it. Worshippers: one: Richie Tozier. Maybe two if he can sweet-talk Ben a little. Rich benefactors always come in handy for a hot new cult to really take off.

Eddie drains the glass, peers into it, and huffs. “Jesus Christ, Rich.”

Richie sniggers. He drains his own and takes a good hard gander at the very naked lady magnified at the bottom of the glass. He got them in Hawaii, going to some touristy bar on the big island, where the bill came with shots of something bright orange and extremely alcoholic. He cracked up so hard at the surprise at the bottom that he had to buy a set of six right there on the spot. They’re his favourite touring keepsake.

His is a busty California babe spraying whipped cream on her tits. Eddie’s is his favourite; a redhead fellating a hotdog, ketchup and mustard dripping down her arm. The things straight people like, he fuckin’ swears.

“This is so you,” Eddie groans.

“No it’s not. I’m more of a fried onions guy.”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Ed grits out, his throat expanding with a tamped-down yawn. Or, somewhat tamped, as his jaw opens inexorably and Richie gets a good peep at those pearls. Not a cavity in sight.

The smile that pulls at his own mouth is just as inexorable. “Now, now,” he says, and thrills with how god damn _natural_ it feels to pat his hand down on Eddie’s thigh. “Come on, Spagheds. Let’s get you to bed.”

Eddie grumbles, but doesn’t protest as Richie takes his hand to haul him up. Their shared grip is strong, and his bicep visibly flexes as he’s hoisted, which Richie tries very hard not to look at and fails spectacularly. It makes him think of when they arm wrestled. ‘Let’s take our shirts off and kiss.’

 _Fuck_.

Richie’s place is fancy, but not _needlessly_ fancy, so his guest room doesn’t come with an en suite like Richie’s room does. Instead, the main bathroom is just across the hall, directly in front of Eddie’s door, where he’ll have no problem navigating back and forth even in the dark. He’d told Eddie all this way ahead of time, all but sent him the goddamn floorplans. He could probably navigate the entire _apartment_ in the dark by now.

He stands in the doorway, watching as Eddie turns on the bedside lamp, leans on the bed to test its firmness. It’s a little nervy, actually, to see how he’ll react, but he seems satisfied, if the little hum he makes gives any sort of clue. He watches as Eddie fishes a key out of his fanny pack, deftly unlocks the bright orange padlock on his luggage, unzips and gets out his washbag. Watches him unclip the fanny pack he’s had on this entire time and lay it in the drawer of the bedside table. He makes having one arm look easy. Like things have just. Always been this way.

Like he’s always been here, in this apartment. With Richie.

“Wanna watch me put on my jammies too, big guy?”

He jolts, feels himself flush hot with embarrassment. Caught. “I –“

For a moment, Eddie looks _annoyed_ , and Richie has a horrible feeling he’s _actually_ been caught, has somehow defied the universe’s natural laws and accidentally broadcasted his domestic gay pining straight out of his forehead onto the fancy embossed wallpaper. _‘I WANT TO MARRY EDWARD KASPBRAK. THIS WILL BE OUR HOUSE. WE WILL HAVE 1.2 KIDS AND GET PAPPED ON THE DAILY AND HAVE TWITTER STANS. HE WILL NOT DIVORCE ME FOR THIS.’_ Right there in black and white, fucking accusing him.

“I don’t need you hovering to help me, Richie. I coped in Queens, and I sure as shit can cope here.”

‘ _WE WILL GET PAPPED ON THE DAILY’_ spills right the fuck out of his head. “I – What?”

Eddie folds his arm over his chest defensively. It’s a weird look with just the one. “I know you’re not trying to be a dick, Rich, but I’ve lived with this for months now. Sure, I can’t use chopsticks yet, but I’m a forty-year-old man. I got this. Or do you just wanna look at my scars or something?”

“No, I –“ Richie takes an aborted step forward, crossing the threshold, comes to an awkward halt. He doesn’t know what to do with his hands. They’re sort of floating unnaturally between them, halfway between a peace offering and doing the hand jive. He can feel the waves of discomfort radiating off of him. Off of them _both_ , all told. “Eds. I wasn’t –“ He stops properly, and takes a moment to pull in that deep fortifying breath that helped him out so much earlier. “Eddie. I wasn’t… looking at you to help. I.”

Oh, holy fuck. Is he doing this?

“I’m just.”

He's gonna combust, right here and now. Straight up in smoke. Kaput. Goodbye, Richie Tozier, you _will_ be missed, at least by the Losers. Maybe Eddie will even cry over him. ‘Wailing like Romeo’.

“I’m just. Happy. I’m happy that you’re here. And. Y’know. Alive. I’m… I’m getting a good look at you.”

Nailed it.

And oh fuck, he _definitely_ nailed it, because in an instant Eddie _relaxes_ , his arm coming down, the tightness around his eyes fading, going _soft soft soft_ all over, and _oh_ , Richie is so in love with this man. His eyebrows cast shadow in the lamplight, just that little glimmer of light in his pupils from the bulb shining behind Richie in the hall, and he is so beautiful. His Eddie.

“You coulda just said that, you big dork.”

Richie guffaws, short and surprised. “Oh yeah? And how would I, Richard Tozier, brimming with machismo, have brought _that_ up in conversation?”

“Like this, dipshit.”

And Eddie just. Steps into him. Arm coming around his waist. Chests touching. His forehead sliding against Richie’s jaw. Easy as anything.

He straight up fucking short circuits, and thank god for that, because his body goes on autopilot and his arms rise up unbidden, doing the real hard work his brain’s too fried to handle. They find their way around Eddie’s back like it’s the easiest thing in the fucking world. Settle just below his destroyed shoulder. Tighten.

Eddie shuffles and makes himself comfortable with a long, slow sigh that Richie _feels_ draw all the remaining tension out of him, sinking slow and soft and warm into their embrace. He’s so fucking _warm._ Holy _fuck. This is the best day_ ever _._

“I’m happy I’m here, Rich.”

His heart is jackhammering.

“… I’m happy you’re here, Eddie.”

Eddie shuffles again, because even tired he can’t settle, can’t ever just be still, and rubs his head a little more firmly under Richie’s helplessly ticcing jaw. They don’t fit together perfectly, not by a long shot, with Richie’s skinny beanpole body probably pointy and uncomfortable everywhere but his soft tummy, his stubble probably scratching up Eddie’s poor face, and Eddie only able to hold him with the one arm, but it’s the best hug Richie’s _ever_ had, no question. This is what he wanted with Bev, with Ben. With _all_ the Losers. Is he touch-starved?

Fuck. Yeah, he’s a little touch-starved.

What’s shocking is remembering that this is exactly what he used to have. Sharing a flashlight to read comics well into the night at Bill’s house, light turned off early because Georgie would gripe about it being unfair that the older kids get to stay up later than him, Bill’s mom giving them a knowing smile as she left them a couple spare batteries before closing the door. Splashing around and playing chicken in the quarry with Bev and Mike and Ben, sunning themselves on the rocks before jumping in again and again and again.

Cuddled up close to Eddie in that hammock at the clubhouse. Long, _long_ periods of unrepentant pre-teen touching, with all the kicks and elbows and griping it entailed, but neither of them moving away, not ever.

They didn’t fit together right back then, and they don’t fit together right now.

But it’s good. Just like this.

Eddie tightens his grip and relaxes it in that tried and true hint that a cuddle’s coming to its end, murmurs a little that he’s tired, but Richie isn’t done. Holy fuck. He’s not even close to done. He’ll cry if he lets go, is suddenly hit with that horrible, _horrifying_ realisation that he really is actually going to cry if Eddie lets go, and feels his eyes start to sting. _Oh fuck. Oh no._

His breath hitches, once. And then he’s crying for real.

“Shit,” Eddie blurts, and starts to pull back, but Richie _can’t_ , he _can’t_ let this be over. Who knows when this will happen again? But Eddie is pulling back properly, awkwardly sidestepping Richie’s stupid sweaty grabby hands, and leaving.

Fucking leaving.

Except, no. He’s come back with paper towels from the kitchen, and he’s shushing him gently, softly, encouraging him to sit down on the bed, where he settles beside him, warm and solid with their thighs pressed together. Rubs his back firmly, lets him shudder all the lost memories out.

“Fuck. ‘M sorry, Eds,” Richie forces, high-pitched, his throat tight and hot. His eyes hotter. Full-bodied sobs wrack him, thick and ugly, and _god_ , he’s so fucking embarrassed.

“No sorries,” Eddie hushes. “Richie cries, and the Pope wears a funny hat. It’s just part of the natural laws of the universe.”

Richie snorts wetly, paper towels stuffed up under his nose. “Don’t let Mrs K’s ghost hear you blaspheme like that. She’d roll in her grave.”

“She was Presbyterian, I think she can handle it.”

They sit like that for what feels like a painfully long time, Richie wrung out and delicate, exhausting himself with his tears. Eddie doesn’t complain once the entire time, just rubs Richie’s back and hums something he recognises right at the back of his brain but can’t place, and when his arm gets tired he loops it low around Richie’s hips, thumb tucked up under his shirt to rub little circles in the skin. It’s so good, so mindlessly thoughtful that Richie starts crying _again_ ; big, thick sobs that pull at his entire body. God, and Eddie just wanted to go to _sleep_. And here he is blubbering all over his nice new sheets.

‘Wailing like Romeo.’

Still, Eddie doesn’t let up. Doesn’t say anything. Just hums, and lets Richie cry.

After who knows how long, though, the silence is eventually broken.

“I’m gonna go get you a glass of water, okay?”

Shivering, Richie nods. He’s too hot under his clothes, and he’s exhausted. He can’t bring himself to try to say anything, but that doesn’t seem to bother Eddie, and he hefts himself up to go to the kitchen. He hears the rattle of the cupboard doors – he didn’t tell Eddie where the glasses were kept. A few open and close, open and close, but then the water runs from Richie’s very nice filter faucet, and then there’s the distinct _rip_ of paper towels being pulled off, and his shadow casts across the room as he returns.

The glass is cold and damp against his palms. Something equally cold and damp is pressed to his forehead.

“Couldn’t find a clean hand towel,” Eddie says, like it’s something he needs to apologise for. “Hold that against your eyes.”

Richie lets out a long, shuddery sigh, and balls his current snotty paper towels in his sweaty palm to hold this new one against his face. It’s impossibly good on his hot, pulsing eyelids. Blindly, he brings the glass to his mouth for a drink. It’s super fucking good.

Eddie hums, sounding satisfied.

“I know you said not to say sorry,” Richie starts, voice thin.

“And yet I can imagine where this is going,” Eddie says, like a bastard.

Richie huffs a laugh. “Yeah. I’m… sorry, Eddie. You wanted to go to bed and I ruined it.”

Eddie scoffs. “I can still sleep. Night’s still young enough. Unless you were planning on getting us up at some ungodly hour, in which case you can go fuck yourself and I’ll find a hotel.”

“In Beverly Hills? Better dig out that gold card, baby.”

“Big comedian Richie Tozier can’t spot his childhood friend a few hundred dollars for a good night’s sleep? I’m hurt.”

Richie shivers around his laugh. His throat hurts from the crying, and throbs a little as a yawn punches out of him, unstoppable. He’s so fucking tired.

“Okay, time for bed, big guy.”

Eddie starts to stand, but Richie drops the paper towels, clamps his hand around Eddie’s wrist. He does it so quickly his brain can’t even keep up for a second, and then he cringes inside, because he was just holding very tear-soaked, snotty rags, and his hand is super warm and sweaty, and Eddie’s gonna fucking hate it. He looks up at him, and sure enough his face is all tight, cheek scar pulled taut and shiny in the lamplight.

“Sorry,” Richie says, but doesn’t let go, because he’s clearly not in full control of his body right now.

“It’s… fine,” Eddie says, expression softening just a little. “Look. I didn’t say anything, but. I really, _really_ fucking want to brush my teeth, dude. Can I…?”

“Oh. Yeah,” Richie says, stupidly. He lets go, but it’s a hard-won thing, and Eddie must realise that, because he brushes his hand through Richie’s hair, rubs his thumb firmly against his sweat-damp hairline, like he’s proving something. Maybe he is.

“I’ll be right back, Trashmouth.”

He takes his washbag and goes, and Richie seriously contemplates sitting still and waiting for him, but that feels too awkward even for his dumb idiot self, so he gathers up his shit and he leaves the room, tapping the ajar bathroom door so Eddie knows what’s up. He still feels vulnerable and right on that edge of dry-crying, but it feels good to be up and about, go through the routine of brushing his teeth and washing his face. The damp paper towel really did help with the swelling – looking in the mirror, he doesn’t look half so bad as he normally does after a good cry sesh. He still looks like hot garbage, with dilated blood vessels raised high and bright around his eyelids, the skin under his eyebrows puffy and raw-looking, and his complexion is blotchy as fuck. But he doesn’t look quite as much like a reanimated corpse as he usually does, so that’s a win in his book.

‘Gotta stay hot for Eddie’s sake’, right?

He rubs his fluffy bathroom towel over his face, right where he had the letter _H_ embroidered. _H_ at one end for his hair, _B_ at the other for his balls. He thought it was hilarious at the time, had all his towels embroidered with it. Still kinda gives him the giggles even now. Shit, maybe he could use this in a bit.

He ruminates on how exactly he could fit it into his in-progress material, pats at the drops of water that dripped down his neck, and definitely doesn’t scream as he bumps into Eddie at the door.

“Jesus Christ!” Eddie yells, then shushes _himself_ , like a complete dork. He looks around, frantic, like the police are gonna break in for disturbing the neighbours, or maybe Mrs K’s ghost is gonna rise straight up out of the floorboards and reprimand her boy for staying up too late. “Jesus _Christ_ , Richie,” he stage-whispers, sounding so utterly harangued that Richie almost, _almost_ feels bad. “I knocked. Guess you didn’t hear me.”

“Too busy admiring myself in the mirror,” Richie confesses, which isn’t even technically a lie. “Ready for beddie, Eddie Spaghetti?”

Eddie snorts and gestures to himself, all done up in nice, thin cotton pjs, looking loose-limbed and comfortable, even – shit, _especially –_ with one side of the neckline falling away off of his non-existent shoulder. It’s a surprise to look down and see that he’s barefoot. He definitely remembers kid-Eddie always wearing knee high socks, even to bed. Something about circulation and sleeping better or some shit. Something about nightmares.

Eddie waggles his crooked, bony, stupid little toes. There’s hair on the knuckles of his big toes, dark and wiry and ugly as fuck. A perfect match to Richie’s own. “Impressed?”

“Shit, Eds, hit me up with your pedicurist. I’m loving what she does with the material she’s been given.”

“Can’t improve on perfection.”

Richie whistles appreciatively. “No she fuckin’ cannot.”

A hum of laughter, as soft and warm as Eddie’s pjs, and then Eddie’s coming in for another hug.

“!” Richie squeaks.

“You’re dumb and I love you.”

“Hngk,” Richie says.

He doesn’t cry. That’s something, at least.

After an eternity and no time at all of Eddie’s head warm and fluffy under Richie’s jaw, Eddie gently, gently extricates himself from a grip far tighter than Richie ever meant to clamp around him. It means a lot that it doesn’t feel so bad to let go this time. Almost like some kind of closure, the kind he didn’t even know he needed. Or maybe like something new opening. God, he’s so fucked.

“Goodnight, Trashmouth.”

Their hands are still touching, the last part of them to come away from each other. Just the faintest brush of fingertips.

“I’m,” Richie starts.

Eddie gives him a long, hard look.

“… Goodnight, Spaghetti,” Richie demurs.

Eddie nods, satisfied, and then their hands are no longer touching, and Eddie’s leaving the room.

Richie thinks it’ll take him years to go to sleep once he finally climbs into bed, with his boxer-briefs on _just in case_ and his whole body thrumming with… something, but he completely conks out within ten minutes and only wakes up to piss like, once.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> One more chapter I said. One more goddamn chapter, I said.
> 
> I cannot be trusted.


	7. Art

And Richie was never heard from again

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Who gets their left and right confused constantly? Me
> 
> Who forgot Eddie was meant to be wearing a shirt in this scene? Also me


	8. Chapter 7

Ever since the dawn of the Losers' club group chat, it's been ablaze with the chatter of a half dozen forty-year-olds with the sort of clamouring fervency no mere mortal could reasonably comprehend. Conversations are born and die in quick succession because it's impossible for everyone to keep up all the time, on account of their differing time-zones, jobs, spouses and whatever recreational bullshit they get up to when they're not being a responsible adult. For Richie, recreational bullshit time is normally the time he spends scrolling back through all the conversations he missed, getting himself up to speed and showing a level of concentration on the written word that his tenth grade English teacher would have killed, or at least committed grievous bodily harm, to see teenage Richie display.

Since it's always alive in some capacity, Richie has learnt to keep that shit on silent at all times. Since he’s basically just as glued to it as the rest of them anyway, why have his phone alerting him to a new message when it's already in his hand? Mostly that means he can get away with sleeping in til nine, when he performs his daily ritual of texting Eddie one of the jokes he finds online on ancient time-capsule websites that are more ClipArt than content. The shittier the better.

It’s a surprise, then, when he’s woken that morning by a text from Mike. At 7:30am.

He squints at the screen, which is an exercise in futility since he's fucking blind without his glasses, so all he achieves is hurting his poor little eyes from the light of the screen. He slaps at the bedside table, snags a tangle of hair on the leg of his glasses as he finds and shoves them on.

**From: Micycle Handlebars**

**Assuming Eddie made it safely over, since you’re both quiet in chat all day. Sorry if this comes at weird hour. Keep me posted!**

Richie grumbles and runs a hand through his hair, thanks every God for blackout curtains and curses every God for screens being backlit, and wonders if he can leave Mike on read. But as he’s only maybe two thirds of a whole asshole, he can’t find it in him to leave his main man hanging. He rolls onto his belly.

**To: Micycle Handlebars (7:30am)**

**Yeah man, it’s early af. Do not disturb, consider a  
sock on the metaphorical doorknob. Where are   
you rn?**

**From: Micycle Handlebars (7:31am)**

**Sock on the doorknob eh? ;-) Don’t worry, won’t  
text again. Prices extortionate, chat is cheaper but   
internet non-existent. In Cambodia!**

**To: Micycle Handlebars (7:31am)**

**Shit dude, that sounds great. Definitely going all  
in on the midlife crisis finding yourself journey.  
Bring back a hand drum and some cool sandals.  
I want your best kumbaya when you get back**

**From: Micycle Handlebars (7:32am)**

**I’ll bring you back a xylophone**

**To: Micycle Handlebars (7:32am)**

**Good man**

**From: Micycle Handlebars (7:33am)**

**Have a good sleep Rich. Tell Eddie I said hi when  
he gets up!**

**To: Micycle Handlebars (7:36am)**

**Hey dude. I know this is out of the blue but I just  
wanna say I**

He deletes what he’s written, scrubs a hand over his face.

**To: Micycle Handlebars**

**Hey man. I just wanna add that I’m super happy for you. Getting out of Derry and all. You put yourself on hold for**

Jesus fuck. How do normal people do this? _Is_ there a normal way to be emotionally open with someone who put their entire life on pause for you? All to pursue a childhood promise to keep an eye out for a shapeshifting child-eater from beyond the stars? Probably not.

**To: Micycle Handlebars**

**Mike. I just wanna say thank you. For everything. And I mean EVERYTHING.**

It’s not enough, not even close to what he should be saying, but. Fuck. He sends it anyway. He sort of wants to die, so he flops his head down on the pillow and wills himself to pass out. Unfortunately, his dream is quashed by a squawk from his phone.

**From: Micycle Handlebars**

**It’s no problem, Richie. Honestly**

And. Oh.

Oh, absolutely not.

In an instant, he’s sitting up, flip-flopping his almost-nude body up and around like a graceful sturgeon, rucking his sheets up under him, accidentally sending a pillow off the edge of the bed as he gets up. Ugh. He can feel the waistband come down from his boxer-briefs, the blood rushing back in a tingle to the indent where the elastic once sat.

He goes to close the door from where it’s cracked open a smidge while he fishes fabric out from his asscrack. He remembers now why he sleeps naked. Damn Spaghetti Head.

Mike picks up instantly. Because of course he does.

“Rich?”

“Jesus _Christ_ dude,” Richie says, instead of ‘hello’ like a normal person. “’It’s no problem’? ‘ _It’s no problem’?_ ”

“Rich –“

“It _is_ a problem!” Richie hisses, glancing at his door. He picks up the pillow, sets it against the headboard so he can make himself at least somewhat comfortable again. He contemplates taking his underwear off as it wedges spectacularly in his buttcrack again like a heat-seeking missile, but vaguely recognises that stripping to nudity with your best bud on the phone is perhaps a little weird. He should at least ask for consent, or something. “You put your whole life on hold, Mikey! For a stupid childhood promise!”

“It wasn’t stupid.”

Mike’s voice goes _hard_ , all flint even over the thousand of miles of invisible filament between them.

“No,” Richie says, pinches the bridge of his nose. He sets his glasses down to the side. Better not to see in a time like this. “You’re – yeah, you’re right. Bad wording. Not stupid. I just –“

“Richie. Are you okay?”

Richie barks a laugh, fraught and tight. “Am _I_ okay? God, _listen_ to yourself! All you do is –“ God, he’s getting choked up now. What the fuck has happened to him? “All you ever did was _take care of us_ , _always_ , all you ever did was protect us, even when we all got to leave and forget everything, and all we ever did was call you a _liar!_ Like you tricked us to come back!” ' _I_ called you a liar,' he thinks. 'I did that.'

Mike doesn’t say anything, or Richie maybe doesn’t let him, because he’s speaking again, a little hysterical.

“I mean, how could you even break the news? ‘ _Heyyyyy Richiiieee_ , you probably don’t remember much, repressed it or thought it was a horrible nightmare, probably built an entire life for yourself out wherever you are, but I need this _super_ big favour where you come back and fight the totally real killer clown that wasn’t some sort of fucked up fever dream! Yeah, that’d be doing me a _huge_ solid, _thaaaaanks_!’” Richie sing-songs, full Valley Girl. He’s flinging his hand around as he talks, getting the pent-up energy out. “Of _course_ you had to keep some things under wraps! How else would you get us to come back? God, we fucking forgot all about each other! You must’ve thought we all decided not to give a shit any more!”

There’s the muted _thump!_ of something being thrown against his wall. Shit. He woke Eddie.

“… You’ve thanked me before.”

“Yeah, but have we ever _apologised?_ ”

Mike is silent. And that’s. Oh fuck.

He’s fucking _horrified_ with himself.

“… Am. Am I the only one who hasn’t?”

‘I’m the worst’, he thinks, sudden and all-encompassing and panicky. ‘He gave up everything. And all I do is crack wise, make jokes, insult and jibe and poke the fucking bear. I’m Trashmouth. I haven’t changed. I’m exactly the same as I was, the Loser of the Losers, the one everyone put up with because I wouldn’t shut up, wouldn’t think of anyone else, wouldn’t care about _anyone else unless they gave me some attention and even then it was all about me, it was only ever about –‘_

“Bill and Ben have,” Mike blurts, and Richie is absolutely collapsing in on himself like a dying star. God, he’s such an asshole. Such an unrepentant, malicious, selfish, _undeserving_ fucking –

“It’s okay, though. Richie. It’s okay.“

“Why didn’t they tell me?” Richie whispers, and then feels even _worse._ He’s not blaming them, Jesus Christ, he could _never_ , but if they’d seen the wrong in the Losers’ actions (‘ _in mine. My actions’_ ) towards Mike, who’d stuck through it all for them, devoted his life to them, kept his whole future on hold to protect _Derry’s_ future, then why hadn’t they _said_ anything?

“I asked them not to.”

Richie stalls. “What?”

“Bill… he apologised first. In the hospital. When I…” _Was crying_. When Mike was bawling his fucking eyes out after offering everyone coffee, when they were all so tired but he was still looking out for them, even then. “… Well. When I was upset. He wanted to get everyone together to talk it out, but I asked him –“ a laugh, brusque and uncomfortable, “I asked him not to. I didn’t want any of you apologising to me out of obligation. I didn’t want any of you apologising to me _at all_.”

Richie grimaces. “But Ben…”

“Ben… came after. Maybe a month? Eddie was still missing in action at the time, is all I remember. He came out with it on his own, hadn’t brought it up with anyone before talking to me. I asked him not to say anything as well. Not even to Bill. Didn’t want him getting the idea of a Losers’ meeting in his head again.”

“ _Jesus_ ,” Richie sighs.

Mike hums, gentle. It could mean anything, and that kind of fucks Richie up.

“ _I’m sorry_ ,” he says, meaning it with every fibre of his being.

“It’s okay,” Mike says. God. That sweet, selfless bastard.

“Just… Don’t tell anyone.”

Richie rubs his temples with his free hand. “Mikey…”

“I’m serious, Rich. I don’t want apologies. I don’t _need_ apologies. I just want us all to get on with our lives, and be free.”

He forces himself to chuckle. “You practice that soundbite in the mirror?”

“I’m standing triumphantly on top of a mountain right now. This honestly couldn’t have happened at a better time.”

“Yowza.” He can’t even imagine scaling an entire mountain for _pay_ , let alone for _fun_. “Send pics.”

Mike laughs. “I will, once I get better Wi-Fi.”

A low murmur of laughter, shared equally between them. It doesn’t make the guilt go away, but it’s a lot like last night with Eddie; closure, or something new opening. God, his therapists in the past would be so fucking proud of him.

“I love you,” he says, strong and clear.

“I love you too,” Mike says, so fucking easily, without hesitation. Bastard. “Eddie’s really got his claws in deep, hasn’t he?”

Richie squints. “What’s Eddie got to do with it?”

A laugh, soft. “Nothing. I’m proud of you, man.”

Richie frowns. “Fine. Keep your secrets, library boy.”

“I will,” Mike says smugly. It’s a good emotion on him. “I’ll catch you later in the chat, then. Sorry if our conversation woke Eddie.”

Richie thinks of whatever hit the other side of his wall. “Bit late for that, dude.”

Mike _chokes_ on an excited little noise.

“… You okay there, Micycle? See a cool bird? Stan'd like that."

Mike gasps on air. “I _knew_ it. God, I _knew_ it. Bev said you wouldn’t make a move that fast, but I trusted my gut. Knew you had it in you, Trashmouth. Say hi to Eddie from me, and tell him sorry I woke him –“

“What the _fuck_ are you talking about, dude?”

“You and Eddie!” Mike crows, like that clears anything up. “Give him a kiss on the cheek from me. Tell him Bev owes me fifty bucks. She’ll lie through her teeth that she doesn’t, he’ll kick her ass for me.”

“I –“

“Anyway, gotta go!”

Richie stares at his phone.

“… Right. Um. Bye.”

“Bye!”

"What the fuck?" he says at the screen, just as his door knocks.

Or. Well. His door doesn't knock itself. That'd be weird. Like some sort of hyper-advanced future where the house controls itself, like in that film he saw not long ago. The one with Gary Oldman as the AI. TAU, he thinks. HAL 9000 but in a high-rise in Beverly Hills. Jarvis.

"It's safe, mom!" he shouts. Thank god he didn't end up taking off his undies.

"Thank god, I was only out there a minute but your hallway is goddamn cold. Why is the floor tile? Put a rug down at least, Jesus. I thought you promised not to wake me up early."

Eddie is a _vision_ as he steps through the door. All sleep-rumpled, droopy doe eyes eclipsed by the scowl of his eyebrows, face creased from the pillow. Hair an absolute _state_. One leg of his cute little jammie-bottoms rucked up to hug his calf. Stupid bony little toes all out on display like it isn't the cutest most sexually confusing thing Richie's ever been exposed to.

"Don't think I promised you anything," Richie says, while his hindbrain is in absolute overdrive with ' _marry me marry me god Eddie marry me please marry me'_. "What are you, a cop?"

"I'm the sleep police. Hand over the z's and no one gets hurt."

"Aww, Eddiekins." Richie pats the bed, and somehow doesn't die on the spot when Eddie _comes over and sits down beside him_. He stares, and maybe squeaks out a thin little wheeze, as sleepy Eddie leans back against the headboard next to him.

Absolutely incapable of saying anything else, he takes the pillow out from under his ass and offers it up in tribute.

"I didn't fart on it."

Eddie gives it a long, scathing look, but he still hefts himself forward, and Richie takes that as permission to stick it behind his shoulder-blades. Or. Shoulder-blade, singular. Does he have two still?

Eddie leans back again, and they just. Sit like that. Together. For a bit. It's nice, if you don’t count the underlying thrum of guilt and anxiety left over from his conversation with Mike, the adrenaline still dissipating in his veins.

"Who was calling?"

He squints up at the ceiling. Oh boy. "I called Mike." Maybe he can lie by omission. He's done it before. He can talk about other things. He _loves_ talking about other things. "He's in Cambodia now."

"Shit. It's hard to keep up with him," Eddie says, all soft edges. He sounds _tired_. "How can he appreciate anything when he's only in any given country for like, two days?"

"Maybe he's training to be an astronaut. How many frequent flyer miles do you need before they let you on the ISS?" He sniggers to himself. "Y'know he's on a mountain right now? Maybe training for altitude sickness. If he rolls down the side fast enough I bet he could get some G-force training in there too."

Eddie guffaws, an ugly, delightful gun-blast of sound, and smacks him. "Don't joke about that!"

"How sick would that be, though? Fighting an eldritch abomination as a teenager, leading a covert double-life as a librarian and paranormal investigator, then fighting the same eldritch abomination _again_ at forty and cannonballing off a mountain a year later as your swan song? Holy shit. I'd watch that movie."

"God, Mike's so fucking cool," Eddie sighs, without a single hint of sarcasm.

Richie swallows around a bubble of warmth that rises up in his chest. He grins up at the ceiling, the pull of his muscles wide and unstoppable. "Shit yeah, he fucking is. He's out there, climbing mountains and practicing to be a spaceman, and here we are, two old idiots in our pjs together."

Eddie snorts. "I think you're plenty cool."

Richie gives himself whiplash turning to look at him.

"… Don't tell Bev I said that."

He opens his mouth to say – god, _anything_ , anything at all – but his throat is tight and closed, the warm bubble in his chest all but _effervescing_ inside him. Eddie looks – fuck, holy fuck, he looks _mortified_. Red all the way down past the neckline of his shirt, turning his head away so all he can see is the bright pink back of his neck, the red shell of his ear. The faint tic-tic-ticcing of his jaw.

"I never said that," Eddie says into his hand.

"You did," Richie says. Feels himself start to grin.

"I didn't. You're hearing things. I had a moment of madness."

Richie is _delighted._ He leans over, tries to get his arm around Eddie's shoulders. Tries to pull him around so he'll look at him, until Eddie's wriggling and complaining and they've got a straight up _fight_ on their hands.

"You think I'm cool!"

"I don't!"

"You do! You think I'm cool, and that my jokes are funny, and that I've got a _huge -!"_

"Shut the fuck up!" Eddie squeals, not at all becoming of a man approaching forty-one years on this good green Earth. "I think you're a dumbass! And an idiot!" He plants his hand straight over Richie's mouth and nose, and _shoves._ Screams when Richie licks it.

Screams a little louder when Richie's fingers dig into his ruined side.

Richie's blood runs cold. "Oh, fuck!" He pulls away, flutters his hands uselessly around Eddie's panting, hunched form. "Fuck. Eds, I'm sorry, I didn't mean –"

Eddie starts laughing.

"You're evil," Richie pouts, but happiness clenches tight around him again as Eddie uncurls, rubbing the space where his armpit once was and looking sweaty and pink and _ecstatic_ with it. He gives him a little shove. "I nearly peed!"

" _I'm_ evil? _You_ hurt _me!_ " Eddie protests, all giggles. "Ow. Fuck. My cool friend Mike would never do me like this."

"I bet our cool friend Mike thinks I'm cool," Richie mumbles, pouting.

"Nobody thinks you're cool, Trashmouth."

He lets out a sad little whine. He starts to lean back to sulk against the headboard, but the pillow must have fallen off the bed in the ruckus. He's not having much luck this morning.

He leans over to get it, and feels his elastic waistband _snap!_ against his skin.

He gives himself, if not whiplash, then definitely some kind of whiplash-adjacent neck injury from turning back to see Eddie give him an angelic look.

"This is sexual harassment," he says.

"I would never," Eddie says innocently.

Richie huffs, and smacks Eddie in the chest with the rescued pillow before he deposits it back behind him. The indignant squawk he gets is award-worthy. "Keep bullying me, and I'll tell Bev you said I was handsome."

"I never said you were handsome. I said you were a dumbass and an idiot."

"That's funny. I distinctly remember you saying 'Richie, I was never brave enough to admit this, but I think your Voices are good and you look very debonair on stage. Also you smell nice and have a big penis.'"

"Hmm. You know, that _does_ ring a bell. I definitely remember calling you a big dick."

" _Spagheds_ ," Richie gasps, affronted. "Now I'm definitely telling Bev."

"You will not, if you value your balls."

"You think I have a big dick _and_ valuable balls?" He holds a hand over his heart, but not before Eddie kicks him in the knee. Still, Eddie's grinning, all lit up and sleepy-raw, and Richie has no choice but to grin back like a dumbass and an idiot.

"Breakfast?" he asks.

Eddie looks _delighted._ "Holy fuck. Yes."

-

Breakfast sucks.

He doesn't _mean_ for it to suck, obviously. Just. Circumstances occur in which breakfast ends up sucking.

"Are you a fucking child?" Eddie asks, as Richie uses his fingers as windscreen wipers for his glasses.

"Who the fuck forgets to put the lid on the blender? Is this a bit?" he continues to bitch, bitchily. He's taken Richie's paper towel roll and is holding it against the edge of the counter with his hip so he can rip sheets off of it. "If this ends up in your special I'll know you did this on purpose and I _swear_ I will never speak to you again."

"I would never!" Richie insists, but the grin on his face must make him look like a big fat liar even though he's being one-hundred percent genuine, because Eddie – or, the Eddie-shaped blob beyond the smeared fruit paste filter on his vision – gives him a sharp little shove with his elbow. A stupid move, as all it does is press his nice clean elbow-parts against Richie's very fruit-stained torso-parts.

"Fuck," Eddie says, succinctly. "Wet wipes?"

"I'll get 'em," Richie says cheerfully, while Eddie makes himself busy wiping up the thick berry skin goop that Richie's breakfast failure now has sliding down the cabinets. He slips, just for a heart-wrenching moment, on a bit of The Little Smoothie That Couldn't, but with a frenetic look behind him it seems Eddie's blobby self hasn't noticed, too busy ripping off more paper towels.

He takes his glasses off and runs them under the faucet. While he can't actually see if he's making them any cleaner, he at least keeps thumbing at the lenses until there's no more femme-fatale red on them. He goes to dry them on the hem of his dirty shirt, purely on instinct, then curses.

Eddie laughs.

"Shut up," Richie sulks, truly showing off his wit. He runs his glasses under the water again.

"Wet wipes," Eddie says again, making grabby hands.

"Holy fuck," Richie says, now he can see.

"Yeah."

"I mean. Holy _fuck._ "

" _Yeah_. Now give me the fucking wet wipes. You'll have to get the ceiling, beanpole."

"Can't I just wait for gravity? We'll stand under it, try to catch the drips in our mouths. It'll be fun!"

Eddie gives him a scathing look. "Nice try, asshole. Get cleaning."

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm mcsuffering from writer's mcblock, your honour


	9. Chapter 8

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Rating shoots the heck up from here, boys.

The rest of Eddie's vacation – Richie and Eddie's vacation? Their together-as-childhood-friend-buddy-pals-totally-not-boyfriends vacation? Eddie's vacation – goes remarkably well, all considered. Neither of them sets fire to anything, or to each other. They, fuck, they seem to _gel_ , just, manoeuvre themselves around each other in this little bubble of time and space they live in in Richie's apartment, like it was always that way.

It's domestic cottagecore gone wild.

The exception, of which Richie never had any doubt, is outside their little pocket dimension in B-List Celebrity District. Eddie is every customer service staff member's worst nightmare, and their greatest blessing. He points out every health violation when they go to Olive Garden, because Eddie has lived multiple decades in Queens and yet still hasn't shaken the bumpkin Maine view that Olive Garden is somehow Real Italian. He cusses out the waitstaff who swipes the table with a cloth before they eat at a Denny's, even though it's a fucking _Denny's._ Richie's sure he's never eaten food that's been spit on as frequently as he's done in the past two weeks.

He cusses out people who don't hold the door open for him, even though Richie's like _right there_ and can totally get it on the swing back before it slams into their faces. He cusses out people who _do_ hold the door open for him, too. There's no winning with the little bastard.

("I can get my own door, asshole! I'm not fucking handicapped!"

"You _are_ fucking handicapped, Eds. It's in the name!"

And then he'd turn on Richie, giving the poor well-meaning soul ample time to get away, but not before they'd turn back and give Richie this unbearably _pitying_ look, like he was some poor henpecked schmuck with his bitch of a husband, while inside he was just eating this shit up for breakfast.)

On the other hand – _ha –_ he has nothing but thanks and praise for kids who hold the door for him. At one point a group of teenage boys in hoodies and improbably low-hanging jeans are loitering and yucking it up on the sidewalk about whatever, being generally intimidating to the pearl-clutching mothers who cling their children close before crossing the street to get away from them. But one of them sees Eddie – way ahead of Richie, what with him being laden down with four bags of bullshit Eddie's purchased throughout the day, the little tourist _putz_ – wrestling to put his phone away in his fanny pack so he can get a hand free for the door, and the kid asks all sweet as pie if he can hold the door open for him, while the other youths don't so much as snicker, just smile, and Eddie smiles and says thank you, and then he holds the door open, and oh fuck, it's the cutest shit in the world even though they don't so much as deign Richie with the stink eye when it's his turn at the door. The group even shout a collective 'bye dude!' when they come back out again, which has Richie baffled until Eddie explains himself.

He has the same politely joyful experience with a gaggle of little old biddies when they take the poor, clueless yuppie bastard under their bingo wings to show him where the wholewheat sourdough starter organic quinoa crackers or whatever the fuck are. Good thing, too, since Richie's only life skill is a supernatural propensity for knowing where the booze and microwave meals are located in any given store.

Same for a kid in the park who loses his tiny little _mind_ when he sees another person with the same limb-scarcity as him. Richie's shit at the numbers game with kids, they all look five to him until they're in college, but this child just fucking _loses_ it when he sees Eddie. Waves his tapered li'l nub of an arm and _books_ it away from his shocked mother, where they'd been sitting reading on a picnic blanket. Barrels his whole dang body into Eddie's legs because anyone with half a brain can see this man has never skipped leg day, because he's a fucking runner, and even under his stupid slacks the swell of his thighs and ass are just, ugh, Richie wants to chef kiss at God. Those thighs could handle a child running into them no problem. They could handle Richie's whole weight, he'd bet good fucking money on it, he'd -

He doesn't get a half chub in the middle of a public park, but it's a near thing.

Then the kid's mom comes over, and the four of them are suddenly fast fucking friends. It's bananas. The mom knows who Richie is, compliments his special, but she doesn't want a selfie, or anything at all from him. She wants a photo of her child and his… his Eddie. The two of them. Smiling and talking and giggling together about who the fuck knows, while he and this random lady both stand there dewy-eyed.

She gets the photo. The kid – Aleksander – starts crying when Eddie admits he's not local. Says they can keep in contact, if he wants. He could use more handicap advice, what with the recently missing arm and all, he could afford to learn some extra pointers, and hell, he could learn some shit for the workplace for when the kid is older, even though Aleksander can use his nubby arm really friggin' well so their disabilities aren't the same, he's got his whole life to practice, look how badass and skilled you are, dude, you're a tiny little champ and don't let _anyone_ tell you otherwise, okay?

His mom approves of letters, so Eddie starts to reel off his address, but then he just. Stops.

"Eds?"

"Uh."

Aleksander gets upset again, starts something about how Eddie doesn't actually want to keep in contact, and Eddie cracks like the world's smallest, saddest egg.

"No! Oh god – I mean, gosh, damn – _darn_ it. No, no, Aleksander, I do, I swear. I just. I don't have an actual address."

His mom starts to look horrified, and fuck, Richie feels himself start to look the same.

" _Dude_ –" he starts.

"I didn't wanna tell you like this," Eddie starts, all fraught, until a blast of harried laughter pops out of him. He looks down at Aleksander before Richie can ask about _that_ bombshell. "I'm sorry, Aleksander. I can write letters, I just need a permanent address before I do. I'm house-hunting right now, actually."

Aleksander perks. "Are you moving here?"

Eddie shoots a glance up at Richie, but what it's supposed to convey he has no fucking clue. "I'm thinking about it, yeah. My job can be done all over the entire country. Unfortunately, it means that until I get that sorted I live in a hotel."

Aleksander's face scrunches up.

Eddie shoots Richie another look, heavy with context he can't begin to parse, but he thinks he gets it.

"You can use my address for now."

It's the wrong thing to say.

Eddie's giving him this _horrified_ look, ten times more dramatic than Richie even though _he's_ the one who just dropped a 'I'm technically homeless and I didn't tell my best friend' bomb on their entire day. But he's put his foot in it now, made his bed and put his foot in that bed, so he ploughs through and commits. Gives little Aleksander and his mom his address, says Eddie's actually staying with him right now on vacation anyway, so for now he can be the middle man. It's complicated, but Aleksander and his mom look happy about it, so who is he to deny a tiny kid and a tiny Eddie their chance to bond? Better to give them a chance early instead of letting the memory fizzle out with their time apart.

Distant metaphors to their own three-decade separation notwithstanding.

It's only afterwards, after another Eddie-and-Aleksander photoshoot and they've stood and waved as Aleksander and his mother head home, that Eddie rounds on him right there in the park.

"Dude!"

Richie holds his hands up. "Dude?"

"You can't just hand out your address to whoever off the street! You're a celebrity! She knows who you are!"

He feels his mouth open, but Trashmouth can never keep up with Mile a Minute Kaspbrak. "What if she sells your address, huh? Plasters it on Facebook to gloat to all her mom friends or something? You could get – get anthrax in the mail, or something! Fuck, your doorman could end up getting sliced by some dumbass looking to score a few minutes with Netflix dumbfuck Richie Tozier. You might get someone's fingers in the mail, dude!"

"Whose fingers?"

"I –" He stops, looks thrown. "I… fuck, I don't know. I'm just. You can't just do that."

"Think I already did," Richie says, and Eddie laughs under his breath.

"Fuck. Self-preservation instinct of a lemming."

"You know that's bullshit? Lemmings don't actually jump off cliffs. They were forced by the cameramen."

"I – what?"

"Yeah dude, they did it for pre-Internet clickbait. It's bullshit. Like how you didn't tell me you're homeless right now, like what the fuck?"

Eddie's mouth opens, but Richie's anger gets there first.

"Like, what? Was I supposed to just let you go home to your shitty hotel –"

"The place I'm at is _spotless –_ "

"And send you back to your doting wife, all smiles and tears and _adieu, my fair Eddie_ 's, and fucking _lest we meet again, Eddie_ 's, wondering when I can see you again –"

"Richie –"

"And you weren't even gonna tell me the _fucking important fucking news_ that you're _fucking homeless?_ What the fuck, Eds?!" He realises he's screaming, cussing in a public park, but it's getting late and there aren't many kids around now. "I thought you had a secure job! How the fuck are you even here? Is this your motherfuckin' swan song before you, what, go bankrupt and sail away on a Columbian fishing boat to escape your debts? How will I ever see you again if you can't spring for a cab from the airport, let alone a _flight –_ "

" _I'm not fucking bankrupt!_ "

Richie blinks.

Eddie's renewed bluster is gone in one breath. "… I'm not homeless, Rich. Not like that. I have plenty of savings. Can we… can we talk about this at home?"

Richie refuses to let himself be buoyed by the word. Home. Their home.

Okay. It buoys him a little. Maybe.

"… Fine," he says. "But we're stopping at Carla's first."

-

It's a bad idea.

Not a bad idea like, _logistically._ Carla's is his favourite bodega. The official name is like, Sunny Supermart, or something, but the sign is faded and nobody calls it that, not even the owners. It's a little hole in the wall kinda place, with a _prime_ hoard of spirits and just the best fuckin' selection of fruit he's ever tasted. Never mind all that Whole Foods shit, getting sprayed with water every few minutes under bright white lights to make them look delicious and freshly picked. Give Richie those mismatched, pallid looking oranges under flickering halogens. He sure as shit won't eat a vegetable unless it's been stir-fried to hell and back, but bodega fruit? Fuck yeah, get that in his citrus-sucking mouth-hole tout suite.

The _problem_ , is that their time at Carla's is making him forget why he was angry.

Eddie hasn't once said one bad word whenever they've been here, even though right this second there's cold milk waiting to be put away, just sitting right there in a normal, non-temperature-controlled aisle while the owners dick around being old domestic businesspeople together. Even though the linoleum floors are tacky and split, weird colours at their edges. Everything's _clean_ , for sure, but these little transgressions must be eating his little goblin heart up inside.

Except, he knows this place means something to Richie.

There are photos of the owners' extended family on every wall.

Fuck.

He goes to the counter and plonks down two huge as hell bottles of tequila, a family-sized bag of chips that he is _not_ sharing with Eddie, not a chance, and two limes.

Marius doesn't say anything, but Carla huffs a laugh. Huffs another when Eddie trundles up with a pack of Imodium and Alka-Seltzer and nothing else.

"I don't know if you boys are preparing for a party, or drowning your sorrows," Marius says, in Spanish. He almost never spoke English, or at least, not to Richie. It wasn't really a problem, since his Spanish was… passable, and it wasn't like he regularly soliloquised at him or anything. It just took him a hot minute to figure out exactly what –

"Honestly? Don't think we do, either," Eddie says, perfectly fluent and as quick as a whip as he is with English. "Just this please."

Fuck.

-

"Richie."

As soon as they're back in their pocket dimension, their – fuck, what Richie _thought_ was their safe space, their place to be honest with each other and just, just _enjoy each other_ , not in a pervy way, just in a you-and-I-exist-and-we're-doing-it-together-and-it-fucking- _works_ kind of way – Richie thunks the huge bottles on the countertops and cracks them open.

"Richie."

His place doesn't have much in the way of kitchen utensils, but he's not exactly impartial to fixing himself up an extremely homosexual cocktail on occasion. He has a cutting board and a blender. He's a grown ass man, who knows what to do with fruit, and that includes digging his knife into a lime like he's gouging out an eye.

"You should wash that first."

"Fuck you!" he says, and fucking _means_ it. They have three days left together. Two, technically, since Eddie's flight is at four p.m. and he's the kind of dude who needs to be there at least three hours early to buy overpriced coffee and stare in a low haze of panic at the screens with all the boarding times on 'em. "Jesus fuck, you've been here for two weeks and you never said anything! Were you gonna wait until you'd gone? Shoot me a text just before you turn your phone off for take-off? Don't you –" _Don't you trust me?_

"Richie –"

"Who else knows?"

Eddie looks stricken, which is answer enough.

He fixes them up tequila shots, the limes in hacked quarters. Eddie can hardly do the salt on the side of his hand schtick, so Richie sets up lines of salt like coke on the countertops.

"I'm not licking that."

"You fucking are."

Eddie knows they're clean. Everything's always clean, since. Since.

Richie taps his shot glass against Eddie's, too hard, makes tequila slop over their fingers, and they both lick up their lines of salt. Richie isn't sure why he didn't do his own the normal way. It didn't even fucking occur to him.

They drink. Eddie winces, and after Richie's bitten into his lime, Eddie rips it from his hand and takes a chunk out of it, too.

There are three more lime quarters waiting on the counter.

"I was trying to find the right time to say it."

Richie fixes them another drink.

"I left Myra."

That throws him, but only for a second. He honestly figured he'd meant that they had somehow ended up out on the street _together_. Couldn’t pay their mortgage, or Eddie'd lost his job and they needed to downscale their place, or there'd been a fire and they'd ended up on their asses out in the cold, or, or, or.

Eddie Kaspbrak was a good boy. Eddie Kaspbrak was a hypochondriac little nutcase who needed his inhaler and needed his wife to remind him what meds to take and when, to text him at all hours of the day to check on him, to be his fucking mother.

Eddie Kaspbrak has his memories now. Eddie Kaspbrak is brave.

"Why'd you wait to tell me? I can take it."

"I didn't want…"

They tip their glasses together again, do their lines of salt close together, faces brushing and tongues hot and wet on the counter, drink deep from their sad little cups. Richie bites the lime and shoves it in Eddie's grimacing mouth himself. Their fingers are sticky with tequila.

"You didn't want, what? To get my hopes up? Make me think you might…" _Might move in here, with me. This was your trial phase. You know you can live here. You know you can make it work. We can make it work._

"Might make me think you'd want to move here," he says, because he can be brave sometimes, too. Or maybe it's the tequila.

Speaking of.

"Richie," Eddie implores, while he fixes them another. Neither of them have bothered to swipe down the counters where their tongues have been, where splashes of tequila dot the surface. "I… I don't know why I kept it to myself. I was, I really wanted to tell you, I was –" a huff of laughter, "- I was _excited_ to tell you. But then I just, I got all caught up in my own head…"

"What, like you wanna get back together with her?"

Eddie snorts, ugly and bitter. "Hell no." He takes the proffered shot. "It was more like… Admitting I was free, y'know? And the first thing I'd wanted to do, as soon as I was free, as soon as I was well enough to travel, was to see you. Just, just _spend time with you_. _Live_ with –" he stops, choking, but they haven't downed their shots yet so that's not to blame. "It felt like… I was showing my hand. Too much. You know?"

"I really fucking don’t," Richie says, thinking of all the times he yelled Eddie's name on their first day back in Derry, and counts them down. Those accusing lines are closer together than before, barely half an inch apart, and he's not sure why he did that, he wasn't even thinking, but they're ducking down on 'one' and their heads are tilted together, noses brushing, tongues flat to the salt and _touching_ each other, wet hot breath misting the countertops, probably, except he can’t see them because all he can think about is their tongues touching and their breaths mixing and Eddie's left his wife and –

They down their shots. Eddie slams his glass on the counter and takes a lime, takes a bite, fast and feral. Holds it out to Richie.

His hand is trembling.

Richie has him up against the fridge in an instant.

"You _fucker_ ," he spits, as Eddie licks up into his mouth and groans like he's dying. "You mother _fucker_ –"

"Richie, fuck –"

His hands are occupied, hoisting Eddie up just under the curve of his ass so they're level, but Eddie's one can travel more than enough for the both of them. "You told _Bev_ and not me –"

"How'd you know Bev –" Panting, desperate and loud in their apartment, _their apartment –_

"It had to be her, she was throwing _hints_ this _whole time, fuck,_ Eddie –"

"I didn't – it wasn't her, I told Mike, it just slipped out, I think she just – _fucking fuck fuck, Richie –_ she just _knew,_ she always had me pegged –"

"Fuck, Eddie, don't talk about another woman pegging you when I'm –"

"Then fucking _do something about it_ , you piece of shit. Fuck, Richie, I love –"

Eddie's moaning, and Richie, of all the people in the world, gets to be the one to hear it. Gets to feel his hips stutter up, pressed against his hip hot and hard and soft at the same time. Eddie hasn't even touched himself, too busy with his hand cupping Richie's cock, squeezing and pressing in with the heel of his palm, too much and not enough, all his focus on getting _Richie_ off, and Richie fucking explodes like Mount St Helens. Vesuvius. Krakatoa. 

He nuts in his sweatpants, is what he's getting at.

Eddie gasps into his mouth like it's _him_ who came, even as Richie feels himself tear up, always weepy on the comedown, except before it was self-loathing and now it's something _big_ , something huge and, and _Eddie-shaped_ , god damn him. He starts to lower Eddie down those scant few inches where he's on his tiptoes, hoisted by Richie's hands and the unwavering support of his steadfast refrigerator, but then Eddie fucking _whines_ , long and high in the back of his throat, until Richie kisses it better, hucks him up higher, transfers them both with a burst of strength in his wiry noodle legs to the countertops with their drops of sticky tequila so he can just go to town on a motherfucker. The motherfucker being Eddie's neck.

His hands, now free, start at Eddie's belt.

"Oh fuck," Eddie whimpers, because that's a noise he apparently makes, now. Eddie whimpers. Because of Richie. That's a thing now. And refractory period? What refractory period? Trashmouth Junior is ready for action, baby, power to main thrusters, he's never been so fucking turned on in his entire life and his dick is _here_ for it. He's already chubbing back up like he's in his twenties again, leaning in to lick into Eddie's mouth, suck his salty tequila-soaked tongue, just, just kiss the _fuck_ out of his best fucking friend in the whole world, love of his life, and get his hands on that dick, holy _shit._

It's hot in his hand, once he wrestles them around enough to get his boxer briefs – motherfucking hot as fuck, he'd have bet on tighty-whities – and his slacks out from under his butt, letting gravity slide them off his legs so his undies hang off one foot, high golfer socks riding the curve of his hairy calf, oh fuck, if he hadn't already splooged once he'd have definitely shot his load just from looking at those legs.

"Get your dick out, come _on_ ," Eddie whines, and he's a goner.

"I wanna suck you off," he says, because he's Trashmouth and his brain filter is questionable at best, straight offline at this exact point in time. He shoves down his sweatpants and boxers, pasty ass out and proud for the viewing pleasure of the whole dang apartment, but before he can so much as do a perfunctory spit into his hand Eddie's on him, his hand hot and dry around him, not even pulling, just holding and squeezing, rolling his balls in his palm and looking, fuck, looking _enraptured._

"Fascinating, isn't it? Now, Eddie my dear, this right here is called a nutsack, and it –"

"Shut the fuck up, shut up, fuck, I hate you so fucking much," Eddie babbles, but clearly something about the joke worked better than admitting he _literally wanted to suck his dick_ , because he starts sloppy-kissing Richie's neck, biting under his ear, pressing his hips forward until Richie scoots his ass forward across the countertops with both hands so they can press together. It feels fucking _amazing,_ never mind their tips touching, just his neck getting got like this is a dream come true. He was never into the whole vampire fantasy schtick, but now, sign him the fuck up. Eddie Kaspbrak can drain him dry, and he'll thank him for the privilege.

"Yeah baby, suck that neck, just fucking –"

"You're such a freak, what the fuck –"

"Can we use tequila as lube?"

"What the fuck? No. I – uh, Jesus, you feel – fuck, I have it. Um. Lube."

Richie stops rutting, even though Eddie's eyes are watering and he looks physically _pained_ by his drawing away. He stares straight into those brimming brown eyes and says, "You brought lubricant into this house? You've made my home into a den of iniquity?"

"Uh," Eddie says.

"Did you masturbate under _my_ roof, Eddie Spaghetti?"

"I hate you," Eddie says.

"I have to wash those sheets, Eds! I'm gonna put days-old spooge that isn't even my own in my beloved, sanitary washing machine, and it's gonna _know_. I'll never be able to look it in the eye again. I'll have to sell it on Craigslist, or send it away to some poor orphanage where it will know not sin, only the gleeful play of children –"

"Do not fucking talk about children when we have our dicks out!" Eddie yells, batting at him, and it's weird laughing your ass off with a raging boner, but here he is. "You want me to go flaccid, asshole? Motherfucker, let me down, I'm gonna drink some water and then masturbate in your poor virgin sheets _all by myself_."

Richie's brain short circuits, even though he's the one who brought it up first.

"We shouldn't even be doing this after tequila shots," Eddie continues, looking fraught. He's still got his dick out, though, still most of the way hard even though he said he was going flaccid. Richie's mouth waters. "I wanted to, I dunno, take it slow or something, I spent this whole time wondering when it was right to even admit I'm getting a divorce, let alone that I'm clearly brain-damaged enough to like a fucking disaster like you and muster up the balls to ask if I could even hold your hand."

"Raunchy."

" _Richie_."

He scoots forward a smidge, enough to drop down off of the counter, and Richie holds his waist in both hands as he comes down. His hands slide up, over Eddie's back, to hold the back of Eddie's neck. Eddie's hand wraps up tight in the hem of his shirt.

They kiss, soft and panicked and perfect.

"Sorry," Richie says. "I'm sorry."

"I don't want to ruin this," Eddie says.

Richie scoffs. "Isn't it _me_ fucking this up?"

Eddie eyeballs him. "I knew what I was signing up for. I just." That harsh gaze drops, falls to Richie's mouth. Another kiss comes, as inevitable as the next breath. "This is more than I thought I'd get. Even in a best-case scenario."

"And in those scenarios, we go slow," Richie says. It's not a question.

"Yeah, I mean, at the time. Those were just fantasies, you know?" Eddie's head thunks against Richie's shoulder, so he starts rubbing his thumbs over Eddie's neck. It's a goddamn _delight_ when he groans, rolls his forehead against his shirt and _relaxes_ , even with both their dicks still out and still almost kinda touching. "I didn't – I didn't know it could feel like this, y'know? That it could be. Urgent."

"Well, shucks. Colour me flattered," Richie says, and means _holy fuck, I love you so fucking much_ with every fibre of his desperate little being. He can feel himself choking up. "There's… no right way to do this. I'll suck your dick right now, if you want. Or later. In six months, a year. It's. Whatever way it goes, you've got me. You're not fucking anything up."

"Is it too early to say I love you?"

Richie does choke.

"At least let me put my weenie away before you make me cry, Jesus Christ. Have a little manners."

And then he cries, for real.

-

He gets to suck Eddie's dick properly, after they drink water and sleep off the booze.

-

**Epilogue**

"Ancient temple built in the Acropolis of Athens, completed in 438 BCE. Nine letters."

Eddie's a goddamn elephant, stumbling his way out into the morning light with the kind of scowl that could immolate a man at thirty paces. "I – what? The Parthenon. What?"

Richie checks, then hums. "It fits."

"Uh, yeah, because it's _right._ What the fuck. Are you doing the newspaper crossword? Why are you doing the crossword?"

Richie holds his pen between the bottom of his nose and his top lip, and says through his pout, "Eddie m'boy. I'm turning over a new leaf."

Eddie snorts, but still, he comes over and plonks himself down in the chair adjacent to Richie at the breakfast table, which is a thing that he owns now. That they own. He slides the paper round a bit so he can see it clearly. "You hate this shit."

"No, _you_ hate this shit. But you still do it anyway, so I figure, why flay yourself every morning at the altar of Merriam-Webster unless there must be some fun to be eked out."

"I don't _hate_ –"

"Ah! Nope! You do. You give it a try, every damn morning, and once you manage like, five words out of the list you're losing your tiny mind."

"That's because most of the questions are bullshit! Why do I need to know what year the Queen of England was coronated? I'm not fucking British!"

"It wouldn't even ask that question! That answer'd be a number! This is words! Y'know, like in the name _crossword_?"

"Shut up, shut the fuck up, you know exactly what I mean. The words they pick are always _dumb._ "

Richie sighs, big and weary and put-upon. He puts one consoling hand on the back of Eddie's neck, rubs his thumb right there at the dip where his skull meets his nape where he likes it best. "No, Eddie my love. Light of my life. _We_ are dumb."

That makes his rabid man pause. Probably thinking about literally any other person they've encountered. Thinking about the Losers Club.

"Mother _fuck_ ," he says, after a long moment.

Richie sighs, and draws his rabid goblin bastard man in for a kiss. "Embrace it, dude."

"Motherfuck," Eddie says, finally, and kisses back.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I did it, sir. I finished the thing.


End file.
